Monday was our first 90F degree day since June of 2017.
Tag Archives: summer
QOTD
“All over Alaska, moose are sucking in new leaves like whales inhaling plankton.”
—The Juneau Empire
Summer ’22 Wrap-up
The Lower 48 remains caught up in the heat of summer, but autumn has taken hold in Alaska. The seasonal graphic that AlaskaWx puts together is a review that I always enjoy, so I’m sharing it here.
Weather-wise, Alaska was all over the map this past summer. Fairbanks had one of our driest summers on record, while Anchorage had a top three driest June, only to then see a top three wettest August.
Toolik Lake had snow in July, while Denali Park saw the white stuff accumulate in August.
The Southeast had an early heatwave, and Cold Bay saw a record early first freeze.
Overall, Alaska has seen 3.11 million acres burn to wildfire, which is the seventh largest burn season since 1950.
The end of civil twilight
The period of civil twilight+ came to an end in Fairbanks late last week. It was a run of 75 days of constant light. Basically, one can do anything outside without the use of artificial lights during civil twilight. Including baseball games!
It’s all downhill from here until December 21st.
Cub Growth
Bear 132 is a spring cub. 132 is one of two surviving cubs from a litter of three. It put on a lot of weight, and a lot of hair. In the September photo, 132 weighs an estimated sixty pounds.
Bear 128 is a yearling, and the daughter of fan favorite Grazer. Grazer is a bold salmon catcher, and 128 is following that lead. By the end of this summer, 128 was catching her own leaping salmon. Park staff have not seen a yearling regularly catch salmon from the lip of Brooks Falls. A future Fat Bear Champion in the making?
Photo credit: Katmai National Park
Some summer numbers
Wildfires within Alaska burned less than half the usual acreage in 2020, which is not really a surprise with an unusually wet summer.
Fairbanks had its 12th warmest and 20th wettest summer in the past 90 years.
Anchorage saw its 23rd warmest and 28th wettest in the past 70 years.
Juneau had its 10th warmest and 15th wettest in the past 81 years.
The western coast of Alaska was just plain wet.
Bristol Bay had some very rough seas during the fishing season, but that didn’t keep them from setting a record year for sockeye salmon.
The Yukon River drainage had no salmon in 2020. No chums. No kings. Nada. The entire fishery was closed.
One bright spot was the amount of sea ice in the Chukchi Sea in August. It was the most we have seen in 15 years.
Denali National Park has already seen 6″ of the white stuff.
Fairbanks has already seen frost.
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