Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment.
While the continental USA has a mild winter and has set a number of high temperature records in the last week and pundits ponder whether they will be blaming the dreaded “global warming” for those temperatures, Alaska and Canada have been suffering through some of the coldest temperatures on record during the last week.
For example in Circle Hot Springs, AK on Sunday, 29 Jan 2012 the HIGH temperature was a blistering -49°F, breaking the -44°F record which has stood since 1917. It gets better.
That same day in Circle Hot Springs the low temperature was -58°F breaking the old record of -52°F set in 1941 by six degrees.
Here’s a list of temperature records in Alaska from the past week:
Brrr!
While all that was happening, the weather station in Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971. That’s not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, the weather station stopped reporting at -79°F.
Here’s the data feed at that moment:
2012-01-28 14:20:00,1028.30,-75.0,-87.6,39,,,1021.19,-55.3,-57.7,85,1.5,155 2012-01-28 14:35:00,1028.00,-77.0,-89.5,39,,,1021.19,-54.2,-65.3,48,1.5,155 2012-01-28 14:50:00,1027.90,-75.0,-87.6,39,,,1021.84,-54.2,-67.8,40,1.5,155 2012-01-28 16:05:00,1027.40,-77.0,-89.5,39,,,1022.74,-57.0,-68.2,47,1.7,160 2012-01-28 16:35:00,1027.10,-77.0,-89.5,39,,,1022.74,-54.6,-59.0,75,1.7,160 2012-01-28 16:51:00,1027.10,-77.0,-89.8,38,,,1022.74,-54.6,-59.0,75,1.7,160 2012-01-28 17:05:00,1027.20,-77.0,-89.5,39,,,1022.10,-56.0,-67.2,47,1.4,163 2012-01-28 17:20:00,1027.20,-77.0,-89.8,38,,,1022.10,-56.0,-67.2,47,1.4,163 2012-01-28 17:49:00,1027.20,-77.0,-89.8,38,,,1022.30,-54.7,-66.0,47,1.4,163 2012-01-28 18:04:00,1027.20,-77.0,-89.8,38,,,1019.33,-55.8,-67.2,47,1.7,174 2012-01-28 18:19:00,1027.10,-79.0,-91.6,38,,,1019.30,-55.8,-71.0,36,1.7,174 2012-01-28 18:34:00,1026.90,-79.0,-91.6,38,,,1019.28,-54.6,-67.9,41,1.7,174 2012-01-28 18:49:00,1026.90,,,,,,1019.30,,,,, 2012-01-28 19:04:00,1026.80,,,,,,1019.39,,,,, 2012-01-28 19:19:00,1026.80,,,,,,1019.39,,,,, 2012-01-28 19:34:00,1026.60,,,,,,1018.84,,,,, 2012-01-28 19:49:00,1026.30,,,,,,1018.84,,,,, 2012-01-28 20:04:00,1026.20,,,,,,1018.45,,,,, 2012-01-28 20:19:00,1026.20,,,,,,1018.46,,,,, 2012-01-28 20:34:00,1025.70,,,,,,1018.46,,,,, 2012-01-28 20:50:00,1025.70,,,,,,1018.46,,,,,
Note at 18:49 on 1/28/12 it stopped reporting all data except barometric pressure.
Some background on the equipment tells us the likely cause.
The station is the venerable Vantage Pro2 by Davis Instruments, arguably one of the best weather stations available to consumers. I have deployed several myself and put them online, for example here and here. They are hardy, accurate, and well constructed, being manufactured in the USA in Hayward, CA instead of some Chinese gadget mill. They also have NIST traceability on sensors.
The Integrated Sensor Suite (ISS) communicates wirelessly with the console below, and the console has an optional PC and/or standalone Internet interface (for DSL/Cable modems) attached.
This station at weather station in Jim River, AK was recording temperatures in conditions way out of its design spec, it only goes to –40 F
From: http://davisnet.com/product_documents/weather/manuals/07395-249_IM_06152.pdf
Appendix B: Specifications Complete specifications for the ISS and other products are available in the Weather Support section of our website at www.davisnet.com. Cabled ISS Temperature range: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -40 to 150° Fahrenheit (-40 to 65° Celsius) Power input: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Console Cable from Vantage Pro2 console Optional Vantage Pro2 AC power adapter Wireless ISS Temperature range: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -40 to 150° Fahrenheit (-40 to 65° Celsius)
While they operate on solar power during the day, these units have an internal lithium battery for operation at night and through extended cloudy periods.
I suspect the internal CR123A Lithium 3 volt battery in the outside ISS died. Note that on 2012-01-28 18:49:00 the data for barometric pressure is still reporting after temperature and other values die. At that temperature, the battery likely could not sustain enough voltage to keep the transmitter running.
The barometric pressure sensor is in the internal LCD console, inside the house/office where the unit is connected to the Internet. All other sensors are outside in the ISS.
The CR123A Lithium 3 volt battery specifications are:
3V 1400mAh Lithium Battery
Wide operating temperature range: -40°C to 85°C
So it was operating way out of spec as well.
Some people have emailed me wondering about why the readings at Jim River, AK stopped just shy of a new all time record. I don’t see any nefarious motive here, just simple equipment failure under extraordinary extreme conditions combined with Murphy’s Law.
Let’s hope the observer there has a backup thermometer, but who’d want to go outside in cold like that to read it?
h/t to Dr. Ryan Maue and Joe D’Aleo
BTW, if you want one of these splendid weather stations, you can get them here. Details here.
UPDATE: The NWS in Fairbanks moves quickly to disavow the temperature report. I suppose the Drudge link has the phones ringing off the hook. But here’s the interesting thing, the nearest other “official” station, PAPR at Prospect Creek Airport, AK only 0.9 miles away, is also offline.
Data Status
Over the last 28 days, no data was seen on the following dates: 2012-01-04 to 2012-01-16, 2012-01-18 to 2012-01-20, 2012-01-22 to 2012-01-29.
It would be interesting to see how they defend an official airport station failure.
NOAK49 PAFG 302352 PNSAFG AKZ219-222-311200- PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK 252 PM AKST MON JAN 30 2012 ...CLARIFICATION OF TEMPERATURES FROM JIM RIVER DOT CAMP... TEMPERATURES THIS PAST WEEKEND AT THE ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION JIM RIVER MAINTENANCE CAMP AT MILE 138 DALTON HIGHWAY...STATION JMTA2...HAVE BEEN REPORTED AS LOW AS 79 BELOW. THE TEMPERATURES ARE NOT CORRECT. THE WEATHER STATION IN USE AT THE JIM RIVER DOT CAMP IS A PERSONAL WEATHER STATION THAT IS NOT RATED FOR TEMPERATURE COLDER THAN 40 BELOW. THE UNREALISTICALLY LOW TEMPERATURES ARE BELIEVED TO BE A FUNCTION OF THE BATTERY FAILING AT VERY LOW TEMPERATURES. THERE ARE NO OFFICIAL...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STANDARD... TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS AT JIM RIVER DOT CAMP.$$ RT/JL JAN 12
UPDATE2 1/31/2012 9:30AM PST
According to Gladstone and NCDC MMS, PAPR (Prospect Creek, just 0.9 mile from Jim River DOT station, and holder of the low temperature record from 1971) is an AWOS station, part of the “B” COOP network.
https://mi3.ncdc.noaa.gov/mi3qry/identityGrid.cfm?setCookie=1&fid=22862
Details on AWOS:
http://www.allweatherinc.com/aviation/awos_dom.html
and as I understand it, it is not rated to –80F, the specs for the thermistor say:
Ambient Temperature Sensor.
The sensor shall be thermally isolated in a
motor aspirated radiation shield to accurately measure air temperature.
A. Range. From –40C to +60C (-40 oF t o +140 oF)
B. Accuracy. ±0.3C.
C. Resolution. 1 oF.
Source: http://www.allweatherinc.com/pdf/awos_level_iii.pdf
So, given the official equipment there at Prospect Creek, it seems NOAA has either purposely or unintentionally created an impossibility of the Prospect Creek record of ever having been broken there again.
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A cold snap reflects the variability of weather, nothing more. However, it is interesting that the mean annual near-surface temperature for Fairbanks slightly decreases since 1977. From 1947 to 1976 there was a slight increase, but the mean temperatures for that period was still lower than that for the period 1917 – 1946 exhibiting no trend and also lower than that for the current period starting in 1977. For these periods the PDO-index was mainly positive (1917-1946), mainly negative (1947-1976), and, again, mainly positive (since 1977). The change of the PDO-index from mainly negative to mainly positive and vice versa was accompanied by a sudden change in the mean annual near-surface temperature.
Other areas in Alaska exhibit similar pattern, except the Arctic north of the Brooks Range (see Hartmann & Wendler, 2005, Journal of Climate, Vol 18, 4824-4839; http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ResearchProjects/Hartmann%20and%20Wendler%202005.pdf). In this case there is also a slight increase in the mean annual temperature since 1977.
Richard Keen:
I appreciate your enthusiasm but still doubt that Jim Creek hit minus 79. As previously stated, there is a gap between temperatures in the minus 65 range and minus 79. If we had some additional reports in the minus 70 range, I would reconsider. Don’t get me wrong — I hope you are right; as I stated in my original post, the localized reports of extreme temperatures are quite interesting. Perhaps some physicist could weigh in, but in my mind, unless there is some disturbance, it is possible for a local temperature to continue to drop to extreme levels in Interior Alaska. I lived in Fairbanks in the incredible winter of 1971 – when the official record was apparently set – and in Delta during the winter of 1975. The winter of 1989 was another doozy. I would love to let Hansen, Mann and Trenberth out of my car out on Badger Road near Fairbanks during one of these events. It would be fun to watch. Hopefully Hansen would be wearing his hat.
Your point is valid, Anthony, and I thank you for it.
Here is a scrupulously impersonal post that is stimulated by recent scientific findings:
Given that the BEST Project’s climate scientists have diligently addressed skeptical concerns regarding station quality — concerns that are entirely legitimate and justified — perhaps rational skeptics might in turn might focus skeptical attention upon concerns — that similarly are legitimate and justified — regarding unfounded and weakly-founded claims in the media that “AGW is no problem.”
As you may or may not know, BEST scientists are divided over the issue. The recent press release from BEST was done by a single man who acted without the consent of the entire panel, which vigorously disagreed with his statement. You are misrepresenting what happened.
That is not an official weather station. It is a fancy toy more or less. -79 not practical.
The rest of the world continues to show signs of a warming climate. The lower 48 is having one if it’s warmest Winter’s ever recorded. Canada also has been mild compared to the average.
But Eastern Europe is having a brutal winter. For every place you cite with warm weather I can cite another with cold.
Is Al Gore visiting there? It seems like every time he visits someplace, it gets unseasonably colder there. It’s happened the last two times he came to Ohio. 🙂
Old Nanook says:
…I appreciate your enthusiasm but still doubt that Jim Creek hit minus 79.
No, no, you got me wrong!!! I would love to see a new records – I LOVE records, especially cold and snow – but I also just don’t think Jim Creek did it last week. I’m hoping some remote coop observer got 81 below, but I doubt it, based on the reported lows from Fort Yukon, Bettles, etc. Fort Yukon used to have the state’s low before 1971, and their 66 below yesterday was ten degrees shy of their record. Perhaps someone might come in with an “official” 70 below or so.
BTW, this thread appears to have struck Anthony’s, mine, yours, and many others’ “funny bones” on a topic we get excited about – quality weather records!
Norway coldest in Europe .
Dozens of people freeze to death in europe;
http://translate.google.no/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vg.no%2Fnyheter%2Fvaer%2Fartikkel.php%3Fartid%3D10077205
When it is cold here, it is warmth elsewere…….
Old Nanook says:
…. I would love to let Hansen, Mann and Trenberth out of my car out on Badger Road near Fairbanks during one of these events. It would be fun to watch. Hopefully Hansen would be wearing his hat.
The last time any of those guys touched a thermometer was when they bent over at their doctor’s office. They wouldn’t know an accurate – or innacurate – temperature reading if it stuck them in the…..
Joe2012 wrote: “The rest of the world continues to show signs of a warming climate. The lower 48 is having one if it’s warmest Winter’s ever recorded. Canada also has been mild compared to the average.”
Funny you weren’t saying that LAST winter, Joe, when the Lower 48 (and Europe, too…a dozen years after it was proclaimed that it would probably not see snow, anymore) was having a miserable cold and snowy time of it. It’s like whenever it gets all cold and snowy, you global-warmers crawl under a rock, or go into hibernation or something, or otherwise just go away and disappear for a while — but heaven forbid a MILD winter shows up, and you’re right there again, instantly proclaiming the world is overheating.
Btw SOUTHERN Canada has been milder than normal, THIS winter. Not so for the north.
IT’s called WEATHER, Joe…and it’s been fluctuationg for all time. ..it’s too bad the man-made global warmers have become the very thing that free thinkers loathed, not so many centuries ago: the dictatorial Roman Church, with no dissent allowed.
Joe2012 says:
….The rest of the world continues to show signs of a warming climate.
Rest of the world? Here in Colorado, where the IPCC predicts 7 degrees of warming over the next century, it has COOLED 2 degrees since 1998. And those are carefully measured and un-homogenized actual real-life thermometer reading.
IPCC says it should have warmed 1 degree in the same period.
There’s many “Rest of the world” places where it’s not warming.
In one of Solzhenitsyns books while in the Gulag if it went to -76 the convicts didn’t have to go to work.
There were many days close to them temps.
Mary Turner says:
January 31, 2012 at 11:54 am
“Do your own research, woodfortrees clearly explains its methodology and links to all sources. If you have a problem with temperature records state it and cite your evidence, if you fail to do so I will take it that you agree the world has exhibited a warming trend for the period in question. Please note, I am not here implying anything about the cause of that warming.”
You could have still answered my questions about methodology if you knew, but you apparently don’t – and that’s OK. It is, after all, a very convoluted enterprise…
“The world has been warming for over a hundred years, even if they disagree on the causes, most people agree on this (it is what all the evidence tells us, if you believe different please cite your own evidence) and throughout this period low temperature records have been set without anyone believing it called the instrumental record into question (and why would they, weather is chaotic, if it didnt throw out surprises it would be easy to predict). Whats changed?”
My question for you is – What do you mean by “warming”? If the earth’s surface-averaged static temperature at the present time is close to what is was in 1980 (and it is), has the Earth warmed since 1980? By analogy, if you pour water in a pot take it’s temperature (room temperature), then heat it up, let it cool back down to room temperature, has the water heated up? Now, you seemed to imply that you could just willy-nilly add the 0.8C increase in the mean earth temperature to imply something about the temperature records, and I don’t think that is correct at all. So, again, I urge you to rethink the whole concept of the earth’s “temperature” and what it really means thermodynamically, especially in light of the averaging operations, infilling techniques, and corrections that are applied to the data.
Now has the mean “temperature” index as defined by the various averaging techniques shown an increase over the past 100 years. Yes it has, and I don’t dispute that (though the rate of increase has reduced considerably over the past decade). Is it dangerous or portend catastrophe? Of course not! Can we do anything about it? No. Can we control the earth’s atmosphere using “geo-engineering”? That’s also pretty absurd. Can we reliably predict the climate? Well, about as well as we can predict the weather ;^)
But we have to think about the polar bears! You know, with all the ice melting and their habitat being……..wait……what!?
Joe2012 says:
The rest of the world continues to show signs of a warming climate. The lower 48 is having one if it’s warmest Winter’s ever recorded. Canada also has been mild compared to the average.
Tell the 30 people who have died in the Ukraine from hypothermia that, or the 12 in Poland, or the people of Korea experiencing a deep-freeze. All of Europe is experiencing a very cold winter. Some locations will hit -10C in the United Kingdom by Friday. The west coast of the US has experienced a very bitter winter thus far. So if you wish to use the lower 48 as an example also consider revealing the entire picture. And in case you missed it, the rest of the world has shown no warming for 15 years now, and that is just not my opinion (see UK Met).
thermistor vs. platinum resistance thermometer (PRT): Thermistors are great within their range, but output becomes nonlinear (more so, with greater departure from -40 limit). I’ve done some experimental work with liquid Nitrogen, and a PRT is needed for accurate results. More $, but you get what you pay for. That said, here’s a shout out to my friends at FYU, where I spent 2 glorious summers doing rawinsondes. -61 F is still a record. The only warmth there is from cabin fever now…
I need to interupt this string because of non-Political Correctness. There is no more “Global Warming” terminology. It is now “Global Climate Change”. Ergo: to warm- it’s human causes, to cold- it’s human causes, No change, it’s human causes…….. whatever we do…we affect the climate in an adverse way!! Can’t win at a fixed game.
BTW all you folks in Alaska, I do not envy you at this time. It is way to cold up there in the 49th!
if the NWS don’t accept readings from recording equipment operating outside its specified range, then the whole historical temperature record everywhere is in question.
They are anyway. It is has been shown that the old mercury thermometers were woefully inaccurate and the digital ones can be just as bad. Garbage in, garbage out.
How did that electric do at theses temps?
This morning (31 Jan 2012) Prospect Creek Airfield (PAPR) has resumed reporting and their temperature of -50 to -55 F is about 20 deg F warmer than Jim River DOT’s (JMTA2) -70 to -75 F reported over the same time period.
A physicist says:
January 31, 2012 at 10:10 am
Elevator Summaries: (1) NASA stands willing-and-able to help folks plot climate data any way they like. (2) Regarding the hypothesis “AGW is no problem”, both theory and data provide ample grounds for rational skepticism about that hypothesis.
[1] True: the mere fact of the long term persistence of Hansen’s “any way they like” plots certainly does prove NASA’s willingness and ability to help some folks in nearly any way possible – in Hansen’s mind, in order to prevent “the destruction of Creation!”
2] Objectively False: taken as real science concerning the real world, “mainstream” Climate Science’s “CO2 = CAGW” theory and data do not provide any rational/scientific grounds for the suggestion that “AGW” will be a “problem”, or even that its “AGW” exists. The simple fact is that over its two decades+ of existence, the theory and data “science” of “CO2 = CAGW” have not produced even one relevant correct empirical prediction yet, including several “predictions” which would normally be disconfirming, according to the standards of real science.
But if mainstream Climate Science truly does want to “provide ample grounds for rational skepticism about that hypothesis [AGW is no problem]” it has to start doing real science by relating its only apparently scientific verbiage to the real world, instead of merely preaching the same old verbiage of yet another Apocalyptic Religion – yes, we know – in order to prevent “the destruction of Creation!”
Right, A physicist?
Hello, Richard,
please, take a look on these photos:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150563284084844&set=pu.6828054843&type=1&theater
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150563284084844&set=pu.6828054843&type=1&theater
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150563283904844&set=pu.6828054843&type=1&theater
Obviously, people like cold snaps.
Have fun.
“Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get”
So true….
Old Nanook,
I remember 1984-85 as being bad, too. Four feet of snow and then 60 below for two weeks.
Global warming is not caused by man. It is prideful to think that it is. The normal temperature cycles on the earth are impacted by solar events, or the lack thereof, earthly events such as wind currents and atmospheric pressure. The covers are being pulled back on the hoax that is “Man Made Global Warming” Refer to the following article for Climategate Part 2 information:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/16/complicit-in-climategate-doe-under-fire/
The global warming effort is a political agenda with the primary goal of implementing taxes on citizens. A global tax is the agenda of the UN. Their focus is to control energy resources and freedom.
Jake says:
January 31, 2012 at 9:57 am
Jan 1989.
US Army Field Exercise Brim Frost
Temperatures hit -75 F.
And we were out in the middle of it,….in TENTS!
Thank God for Yukon Stoves!
========================================================
There have been a couple of comments made in reference to the winter of ’89 and specifically towards Brimfrost. I didn’t go out for the exercise. I stayed behind in medical support.
Brimfrost ’89 can not be mentioned without an acknowledgment of the men who were called home early. http://www3.gendisasters.com/alaska/15706/fairbanks-ak-canadian-plane-crashes-jan-1989?page=0%2C0 It was the ice fog. …….
We didn’t have IV warmers, then. All the troops to clear the wreckage were in the field, not that the equipment would have started. ……
It was then that I came to realize the truth about Hell. Hell is cold. Hell is the absence of the Light. Alaska is as near to that as I can conceive. And I pray I don’t have to ever come close to that madness ever again.