Tag Archives: below zero

Fairbanks Weather Almanac

Fairbanks had 5″ of snow in October, which is trending downward for the month. Between 1981 and 2010, October saw an average of more than 10″. Fairbanks has not seen an October with significantly above average snowfall in 18 years. Not that I’m complaining about that statistic. I’m in the “delay the snowfall for as long as possible” camp.

Sunday morning saw our first below zero temp of the season. It was -10F at the cabin. That is two days later than the average first dip into the negatives.

The Tanana River is at flood stage near Fairbanks due to an ice dam. We often think of ice dams causing trouble at break up, but they can cause havoc in the autumn too.

The length of day on Halloween in Fairbanks was 7 hours and 58 minutes. All Saints Day will be 6 minutes and 45 seconds shorter.

The record low on Halloween is -30F. The record high for the day is 46F. The average is +5 and +20 respectively. 2022 was slightly cooler than average.

Graphics credit: ACCAP/@AlaskaWX and NOAA


Streak ends at 107

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The temperature reached +33F on Sunday at the Fairbanks airport.  That ends the consecutive days streak of below freezing temperatures at 107 in Fairbanks.

The record streak of below freezing is 158 days, which happened in the winter of 1971-72.

I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed Sunday.


Bridge Over Frigid Waters

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Walking bridge across the Chena River

Thursday morning was just a tad chilly in Interior Alaska.  Fort Yukon dropped to -45F.  The record low for the date in Fort Yukon is -68F, so it’s still balmy from that vantage point.

The Fairbanks airport hit -20F at 8am on Thursday.  The first time we had officially dropped to -20 for the season.  We are 2-1/2 weeks late (November 19) from the average first -20 of the season, but we are still 10 days earlier than in 2018.

The temp at the cabin at 8am was -26F on Thursday.


First Frozen Pipe

It was -18F this morning, and I received my first frozen pipe call of the season at 8am. My response was “that it wasn’t cold enough yet for frozen pipes. What are you going to do when it drops to -50?”

“Well, you’re going to fix the problem long before it drops that far,” she replied.

Damn.

So I spent much of the morning re-insulating the offending closet with the water lines & wrapping the pipes. I feel like I’m never going to get this siding job finished.