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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Mike says:
January 31, 2012 at 1:52 pm
How did that electric do at theses temps?
=============================================
Wires going outside are exceptionally brittle when temps are under -40. I lost a battery warmer/radiator circulator once in the maddening cold. I figure the wind broke the wire. Damn car sat there for a month before I could get it started again.
20 below is not cold. It IS where you have to be more careful about what you do outside.
60 below is where stuff like changing tires or working with heavy machinery can be brutal due to the heat loss through gloves.
You can survive at 60 below by knowing a few fundamental things about how to find shelter and stay warm.
That said, every cold winter like this, there is always some long article about someone who ran out of fuel or food in the bush and then died.
It’s cold during the winter … how shocking. This of course doesn’t prove climate change doesn’t exist, but it sure will get the Drudge crowd all twisted up in a knot.
REPLY: It’s hot during the summer, how shocking. This of course doesn’t prove climate change exists, but it sure will get the HuffPo crowd all twisted up in a knot.
[real cause of that heatwave is here – nothing to do with global warming aka climate change]
A physicist says:
January 31, 2012 at 12:21 pm
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.”
—————————————————-
Please provide an example or two of such claims, Just as important please articule what CAGW disasters have actually been realized. No projections, actual disasters please. And, to prove you are open minded, please articulate any realised benefits from the last 110 ppm increase in CO2.
110 ppm. You should know that water vapor is a much more effective greenhouse gas than co2. You should also know that the climate models don’t work. They aren’t even close, and that is because everyone knows pretty much how much heat co2 traps, but the models overestimated by three hundred percent how much of that heat remained in the atmosphere. It turns out that the heat does not remain trapped, and especially over the seas it dissipates rather quickly. The predictions of future temperatures are badly skewed and I would hope you could admit to the flaws in your theory.
Wow, what a childish reply, suppose that’s what the level of discourse is around here. A single location, or a single weekend of cold temps in the winter means nothing. But it seems to get you and the Drudge folks’s panties in a bunch, doesn’t it.
Climate change is a process that happens over time and the world is getting warmer, reguardless of what happens in Alaska this week.
REPLY: Ah the dish it out but can’t take it defense when the same phrase is repeated back with a couple of words changed pointing to the hypocrisy in Texas. LOL! Oh and Alaska has been like this for weeks.
Not any more childish than the constant chirping from you HuffPo clowns who crow about every warm summer day, or every unseasonal winter day as proof of global warming. You are every bit as infantile as those of us who are sick of your constant propaganda.
“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.”
This seem to be the prevalence state after abandoning analog, and there I say mercury, based equipments.
No wonder everything has been warming since the introduction of digital equipments, inferior to analog and analog/digital equipments.
What I don’t understand though, in the age of preservation and recycling, why, since the last decade and two, there’s no interest in keeping the old equipment running even though you can put a 19-th century made station online by a simple webcamera. Technological wise there has never been nothing that was sane about removing all the “old” stations, especially since maintenance cost apparently has come down in the last 130 years.
With respect, JPeden, that is not quite correct.. The branch of modern science that preaches against the destruction of Creation is not climatology (because even lifeless planets have climate) but rather evolutionary biology.
The “Hansen” role in evolutionary biology is filled by Ed Wilson, whose scientific views regarding the preservation of the Creation are summarized in a series of on-line conversations titled The Science of Survival.
Wilson’s thoughtful and well-informed embrace of the Creation and its meaning — he is himself a Southern Baptist — is worthwhile for skeptic and nonskeptic alike.
Jake says:
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!
So let’s way-back 19 years….
Jan. 1970. US Army Jungle School, Panama. Temperatures hit +75 F. And we were out in the middle of it…..in TENTS! And RAIN! Thank God for mosquito nets!
That was back when the Army had business in warm, wet places.
I’ll take the cold.
To keep on topic, a classic Alaskan High set a pressure record in Barrow (31.43 inches 1/3/1970) that month, then barrowed on down to the equator, freezing Fort Sherman on Panama’s Atlantic coast with a record low of 69 (above zero). Honduras had a “banana freeze”, where lows near 50F caused bananas to blacken.
I was a Met Man down there, and all our thermometers worked in the 69-100 degree range. However, sometimes the rain gauges overflowed.
Austin says:
January 31, 2012 at 2:28 pm
………………………………………………….
60 below is where stuff like changing tires or working with heavy machinery can be brutal due to the heat loss through gloves.
==============================================================
Once, as my shift at the hospital was completed and I was going home, I spotted a young lady crying in the lobby. I asked her if I could be of any help. (I was hoping to be able to direct her to some service in the hospital.) She explained that she had a flat tire. It was Jan 1989 Ft. Wainwright AK. The temps were near 60 below. I went to change her tire. Many places in AK have outside outlets so you can plug your car in. (Battery blankets, oil pan warmers, etc….) The parking lot for the hospital did not have enough. She wasn’t plugged in. I grabbed the lug wrench…….. “ssnnaaaapppp!” There went the lug bolt. I looked at her and she at me. We both went back to the lobby and cried. Her husband was lower enlisted, as was I. He was in the field. A tow to a shop would cost $100 which neither of us had. The time it would spend outside without a warmer of some sort, it wasn’t going to start even if the tire could get changed. She had to get back to her baby. A neighbor was watching it.
60 below, a person can feel it hurt even getting out of bed in a warm home. I never got over my stint in the north side of hell.
I live in North Pole, AK. Moved here in ’84 from Minnesota.
We just had -55 F. Worst thing with that is my clunker doesn’t want to go anywhere at that temp.
I just wanted to say that I am not so much concerned with the temps, but with the increase of wind and humidity in the area over the last few years. YUCK! I want the relatively windless and dry cold back.
Can’t be true. Mr Hanson and Skeptical science say’s so. Who are you going to believe!
Cold and snow? This is skeptical BS every scientist that gets paid to promote global warming says so!
What this really means is that Wallowa County will get more moose. Then all I have to do is make sure I can tell the difference between female moose and elk. But that is the least of my worries. If I kill either one, I have no idea how I am going to get it back to my car. I hear they are reallly, reallllyyyy big. I almost hit one once and all I saw were the legs. The rest of it stood above the hood of my car.
So…
What would be the impact on the Arctic fabricated temperature if all the ‘reference stations’ that are used in the homgenizing to fill in those non-temperature cells…. well, if they are all “pruned” of any temperature below -40 ? I mean, it’s got to have an impact on the averages…
I often recall the story of the Canadian military aircraft crash in the arctic in 1991 and the ordeal of survival, and death, in the cold:
“But in the 30 hours that it took for the first squad of military paramedics to arrive, five people, including the pilot, Capt. John Couch, a 32-year-old father of two, had frozen to death. The airlift of the survivors did not begin until 40 hours after the crash.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/05/world/after-a-plane-crash-30-deadly-hours-in-the-arctic.html
Brutal cold snap in the Balkans too. A lot of snow and subsequently freezing temperatures (in some regions daily minimums lower than -30 °C, predictions for daily min tomorrow -38°C!). Some villages in eastern Bosnia, southern Serbia and Montenegro are snowed in and roads are blocked for weeks. People are dying too.
Arctic temps have arrived in central Europe. Actually, Germany is facing night temps between 12 and 20 below zero (Centigrade) And the cold is going to stay.
Please tell me again how much better cold is over warmth…
Have a look over europe`s cold snap
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15706708,00.html
@ur momisugly Michael Schaefer – re: Cold is better
It keeps the ice from melting in my tea. 😉
For the new trolls:
Mild temps in the US mid-Atlantic states around the end of Jan are (w/a few exceptions) an annual event — the January thaw (look it up). Typically, that is quickly replaced by cold temps. Back in late Jan 1974 there were two days in a row near 80F in western MD, followed by heavy snow & cold in early Feb. Roanoke, VA, recorded 87F in late Jan 1930.
Excuse the OTness of this posting, but I have not received any posting on the main website since this Alaska cold story two days ago; however I see that comments to this story are being posted as of today, Feb 1. I had the problem of not receiving postings before even though WUWT HAD made new postings and now wonder if my computer and search engines are at fault or if there really has been no new WUWT posting. (I have searched using both google and yahoo with the same result.)
I will monitor this comments section in the hopes of finding an answer.
IanM
New cold wave is coming to Europe from Russia:
http://www.weather2umbrella.com/en/weather-forecast-satellit-europe-temperature/eta/7/2/2/0
is there something 1947-esque about this winter? (Mostly mild but with an intense cold period)
The mild winter the lower 48 is experiencing is a direct result of the jet stream not dipping into the region the way it normally does. For this same reason the cold air locked in the upper northern regions not mixing with southern currents is causing extremely cold conditions. This still reflects a relatively avg norm across the board. If green house gasses were a cause for a mild winter in the lower 48 then an example of this would have the jet stream dipping down and not effecting the temp to become colder because of trapped heat and also causing the northern areas to warm more due to this trapped heat being carried there. The only model that is acceptable to prove green house gasses warming the planet would have to show trapped heat being effectively left in the total system and circulated around the planet effecting overall temp against factors other than jet stream and ocean currents.
There is a good article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/what-happened-to-winter/article2316780/ This is noteworthy because the G&M is usually pushing the AGW story for all it’s worth.
IanM