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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Are there a lot of sites in Alaska using the Vantage Pro2?
You would think that lots of places in Alaska get colder temps than -40 F.
Well that’s just sic.
…CLARIFICATION OF TEMPERATURES FROM JIM RIVER DOT CAMP…
NWS HAS DETERMINED THAT THE THERMOMETER IN QUESTION WAS INCORRECTLY SITED TOO FAR FROM THE REQUIRED LOCAL AIR CONDITIONING UNIT … THIS RESULTED IN UNACCEPTABLY LOW TEMPERATURE READINGS AND FAILURE OF THE UNIT … HENCE IT HAS BEEN STRUCK FROM THE RECORD…
/sarc off
Yeah, I did a 3 year stint at Ft. Wainwright (Near Fairbanks, not Wainwright Alaska on the north coast). I experienced first hand more than a few -40F events,(they are important, because all sorts of interesting things start happening when that temperature threshold is reached/crossed) and I can’t help but observe that the last couple seem to be more protracted and occur with more frequency this year.
I live in Hawaii, now. BTW, I am a weather forecaster, and I supervise the “Alaska Desk” here.
The collected datasets for several of the locations in Alaska have shown a warming trend in the last 30 years when you take into account the extreme minimums for temperatures. (No -50F events for fairbanks since the 70s, then one occurred during my third year on station) It appears that this trend is abruptly reversing. Where am I going with all this? Maybe these events and trends are cyclical in nature. Until we have a (much) better understanding of the processes that determine our weather- and by extension, our climate- it is folly to speculate and scapegoat a cause, especially when actions taken upon those hastily drawn conclusions degrade the living conditions of those who live there by dramatically increasing the cost of heating their homes.
Fact no doubt will encourage the global warming faithful to redouble their efforts, but for people who have questioned the gorite philosophy from the beginning and endured their insults, take a look at :
“Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.”
The web page referenced did not print in my remarks at 10:06 So try again:
The address is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming–Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html
• Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
By David Rose
Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
One thing strikes me, why install a thermometer that can not measure temperatures even close to what have been measured there?
Mackenzie says:
January 30, 2012 at 9:35 pm
“There’s a reason it’s referred to as climate change instead of global warming these days. As some areas heat up, climate patterns change and other areas cool. For example, the lower the salinity in the Atlantic (as the ice caps melt), the more slower the movement of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to the UK gets, and eventually it could stop, plunging the UK into an ice age.”
Mackenzie, the IPCC is called the IPCC since 1990 or so; guess what the CC stands for? So much for your “these days”. And all those wild theories about some places warming, some places cooling because of an increased greenhouse effect make absolutely no sense whatsoever; the warmist scientists are just in frantic convulsions trying to correct their explanations a posteriori; which still does not give any of these explanations any predictive skill. So your “reason that some places cool and some heat up” still needs to be tested by comparing PREDICTIONS of the latest theory with future OBSERVATIONS; until then, it is UNVALIDATED CONJECTURE by the warmist scientists.
And tell your warmist scientists that a prediction better not contain the word “could”.
The more you understand about physics and the universe, the more convinced you’ll be that modern man is completely incapable of creating, starting, speeding up, slowing down, or stopping global warming or climate change.
Our galaxy is rocketing through space at over 2 million MPH. We’re receiving more energy from the sun than 1,000 Hiroshima nuclear explosions, every second. But a cow farting in a pasture is going to bring Earth to its end?
Damn global warming!!!!
Jim River is a mile from Prospect Creek. From Wikipedia….
“Prospect Creek is a very small settlement approximately 180 miles north of present day Fairbanks and 25 miles southeast of present day Bettles, Alaska. Years ago it was home to numerous mining expeditions and the camp for the building of the Alaskan pipeline. Today, it is mostly desolate with little activity since the completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 1977. Prospect Creek is also home to the U.S. record for lowest temperature. In January 1971, the record low temperature of -80°F (-62°C) was recorded. … There are currently no people living in this area.
…Prospect Creek Airport (IATA: PPC, ICAO: PAPR, FAA LID: PPC) is a state-owned public-use airport…For the 12-month period ending July 9, 2008, the airport had 498 aircraft operations.”
… So, in the heyday of the pipeline construction Prospect Creek was a NWS co-op site, and recorded the US record low of -80. The station closed in 1980. Now, the “town” is uninhabited, and the airport – a landing strip, reallly – is unattended with less than one flight a day on average. The FAA says RECOMMEND VISUAL INSPECTION PRIOR TO USING, LIMITED SNOW REMOVAL, and BEACON ON ONLY WHEN THE ASO FACILITY IS MANNED AT PROSPECT CREEK.
There hasn’t been a NWS station there in 32 years, and the automated stations at the Jim RIver DOT and the Prospect Creek Airport are only occasionally checked on and less frequently maintained. One can only guess how far off a non-NWS calibrated station that may be poorly located and may not have had new batteries in a year could be. Ten degrees? Twenty? We’ll never know. Glance through the personal weather stations on Weather Underground and you’ll see a scatter of 5 or 10 degrees under “normal” temperatures.
So, what was the real low at Prospect Creek? Although the lack of a calibrated, inspected, and properly sited station makes the answer irrelevant to records, let’s speculated. The old Prospect Creek station used to run about 5 degrees (ranging from zero to 10) lower than nearby Bettles (25 miles to the NW and a few hundred feet lower) during extreme cold events, but sometimes Prospect Creek was warmer. When Prospect Creek recorded the all-time low of -80, Bettles came in 12 degrees warmer at -68. When Bettles had it’s low of -70, Prospect Creek was -58.
This week Bettles recorded a record low of -60 for the date, but fell 10 degrees shy of its all-time low. I’d guess that a Prospect Creek co-op station might have recorded -65 or -70, or maybe even -72. 72 below would be second place, like the Phillies in the 2009 World Series. 79 below, almost 20 degrees colder than Bettles, seems quite unlikely.
Norway’s record low temperature is -51.4C from 1886 in Karasjok, but in 1999 it looked like it was going to be broken. So journalists poured in and everybody wanted a look inside the stevenson screen. The lowest it got was -51.2C, but it has been speculated that if the journalists hadn’t all been poking their noses into the screen and thereby heating the instruments, the record would indeed have been broken.
While it’s cold in Alaska, it’s been pretty warm on the Atlantic side of the arctic with heavy rain in Svalbard. While rain sometimes happens in January even as far north as 80N, what’s been really exceptional is the amount of rain. Ny-Ålesund at 79N recorded 98 mm in 24 hours yesterday and another 34 mm today. The average total for January is 27 mm. It’s been estimated that this only happens once in 200 years.
Here in Canada one of our country wide news outlets is called Global News. They tend to be quite biased towards the warmer side. To day they reported the cold weather in Europe, then right after showed a moving graphic from NASA supposedly showing rising temperatures over many decades complete with bright burning colors. I thought it hilarious and so sad.
Funny thing about the sun cycles is that the trend of increasing sun activity over the last couple hundred years directly correlates with the trend of the AGW propoganda. But, as usual, the AGW cult has a claim on hot, cold, sun maximum, sun minimum, etc. The latest techniques of AGW cultists are to claim that cold is caused by AGW, and/or that even though the sun cycle trends almost exactly with the supposed AGW temp increase data, they conveniently claim that there is an “additional” magnifier of human involvement…
Even if we enter a full-scale ice age, with 2 mile deep glaciers covering all of Canada, all of northern Europe, AND the upper third of the U.S., AGW cultists will say that it is an anomaly.
Richard Keen have you been there? Back in the mid 90s I was doing a bicycle race on the Yentna river and it was -30 at the riverbank cabins and I was told it was 10 degrees colder on the river a mere 50 feet away. I had no experience or frame of reference for telling the difference between the two but I could tell that when I cycled down the embankment to the river it got remarkably colder. Small elevation changes of 10 to 20 feet were very noticeable, almost like dipping in a pool.
I’m surprised no one could see the solution to this problem. The reason the unit was on battery backup was that it was night time and the solar cells were not working. The obvious solution to this would have been to install a 100 watt flood lamp pointing at the solar cell to ensure there would be enough photons striking the cell to run the unit. I think an 18 inch (45 cm for our metric cousins) space from the unit would suffice…. This would also solve the question of the obviously false unofficial record low reported from the station..
Technology solving modern problems, I love it….
I love cold. I hope I never live anywhere that it doesn’t get cold. It keeps poisonous snakes out. Record here in Minneapolis is only -41F (also -41 C). Record for MN: -60F, Tower, MN 2/2/96
Can you believe it’s been -2F in Florida? http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0113527.html
Thought YOU and your some of YOUR colleagues in the climate community
might enjoy
reading POLAR CITY RED
. a new sci-fi cli-fi NOVEL set in a climate-rocked Alaska of 2080
A.D. not so far away as all that, and yet far enough away
as to be pure fiction. I can send you a free e-book of POLAR CITY RED
by Okalhoma author Jim Laughter (his real name) if you want one.
RE:K.M. Southwood says:
January 30, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Thanks for the first-hand account. One report from the scene is worth fifty comments from afar.
You mentioned you had both modern and traditional thermometers. Have you noticed much difference at extremely low temperatures?
Thanks for keeping the cold up there, this winter.
This is only balmy Alaska. What does the weather station at Freezyer Ballzov, Siberia, show?
I thought about going to Alaska to visit sometime. To see some moose. But I thought better of it. And now even the poor moose are freezing up there. Brrrrrr!!
Previously stated:
WOW! Drudge link! You have made it Anthony!!! …..
[Reply: Site traffic just jumped 40%. ~dbs, mod.]…….
Wait till the West coast gets home. ;)……..
[Now it’s up over 100%. ~dbs] ……..
Anthony, what will this link do for your Google search ranking? Last I heard WUWT was page 35 of a AGW search (I forget the exact search phrase) on google…
Huzzah’s for Anthony and WUWT!!.
I am an actual Alaskan and have experienced temperatures of minus 60 on many occasions although not recently. There is a considerable distance between temperatures in the minus 50 range and those which might reach minus 70 or even lower. In Interior Alaska, for example Fairbanks, Delta, Tok, Northway and other areas along the Tanana River, minus 50 is fairly commonplace. Fort Yukon at the junction of the Yukon and Porcupine Rivers can be a bit lower still. Jim River and Prospect Creek lie to the west of Fort Yukon and are in the cooler category. Another scary place is on the Alaska Highway near the Canadian border, which includes Snag and Beaver Creek.
Unless temperatures in places like Fairbanks, Fort Yukon or Tok are reaching the minus 60 category I would be suspicious of claims of temperatures of minus 70 or lower in the region. I would fully expect the Jim River report to NOT be accurate.
With that said, the stories of Ed H, above regarding local lows in the Interior are worth thinking about. Contrary to some suggestions in the comments above, the temperature will drop and keep dropping in the absence of significant disturbance in the air. Some individuals living southeast of Fairbanks have reported temperatures below minus 70 and even lower in that area and I would believe those reports. In Delta in February 1975 I saw a thermometer at minus 80 and another a short distance away at minus 73. There was no doubt in my mind that it was pretty cold.
As severe as that seems, it is my understanding that temperatures in Siberia are routinely colder — in the minus 80 range. And I have a friend who wintered at the South Pole with temperatures of more than minus 100.
Here in Anchorage, it is warming up to 10 F for a few days, although I think it will probably head back down below zero by the weekend. God help the lower forty eight states if this cold air mass releases all at once and heads south in February.
Jerry says: Richard Keen have you been there?
….ummm, I’ve been around Alaska quite a bit, have spent the better part of a year on assorted glaciers, and live in Colorado where cold air also likes to pool in large and small valleys. I’ve even biked through these cold and warm pools, with a thermometer mounted on the handlebars. And I’m a co-op observer who has made forty thousand or so max and min temperature readings. But my personal experience is immaterial, since I’m comparing actual observed records at two locations, one of them the spot where the record low was approached. It’s the observed and documented readings that count, not how cold your or my knuckles feel as we ride our bikes.
I have done some extensive research, personally funded , no big oil $$ :-(..
Doing a Google search:
“climate change”, WUWT is page 32
“global warming”, WUWT is page 31 (getting better)
and searching for AGW on Google reports WUWT on page………….
Wait for it………..
Almost there!!!!!
Page 2 of the Google search results!!!!!!!
(confetti flying everywhere!! Noise makers and streamers abound!!!)
Congratulation to all involved with the running of WUWT and especially to Anthony for creating it and putting up with all of us “Armchair Scientists”……