Rain Last night Cold to Arrive
Been an quite week here with the exception of an steady East to SE wind. Think the Yukon finally ran out of wind. Wind chills were in the -40 to -50 range. Winds were steady 20-25 knots gusting to 30. After the Tanana jet shut down winds came from the south thru Isbel pass and brought Chinook conditions. That same warm air shut down the ALCAN and Haines Cutoff due to snow, ice and blowing snow. The Portion of the ALCAN in Canada has been reopen as crews there remove the problem down by D-bay and Kluane. The Haines cutoff crew is still working on the road there to clear the problem of snow , icy conditions, overflow icing and black ice.
Closer to home an LP system develop over Fairbanks last night dumping rain and snow from Fairbanks north and east. Here we just got rain. Of course it made the roads become ice rinks. Hockey any one. Received .15 on an inch of rain and then temps started dropping. Last night at midnight it was 36 deg. and as the day progressed temps kept dropping. At the present it is 14 deg. F.
NWS has been warning about a cold air mass coming out of Siberia as HP develops over there and links up with HP here. This air mass has temps recorded between -55 and -80 F. You folks in the lower 48 thought it was cold there. HA. Anyways it is to move into the state by Thurs night and be in my area by Saturday night and Sunday Morning.
One village in Russia has recorded -88 F in that cold mass. Like Fairbanks it is close to the Artic circle and in an bowl so the cold keeps pouring in down the hills. They had set up an Digital Thermometer in the village square and at -80 F it died. Some folks there had the good ole analog units to keep the records for the cold they observed. As to how cold we will get remains to be seen, but -30 so far is the minium temp. This is the time of year here for this deep chill to come, 80 below @ jim creek in 1971. So it will be interesting.
Rivers in the area still have area of unfrozen water. With this cycle of cold,warm, then cold again I wouldn’t think of going out on them. Lakes are in good shape but I would leave the iron dog on the beach and walk out to where I want to ice fish . one guy has his pick up on bottom of Chena lake where it was driven out on the ice and broke thru.
Station Data:
Temperature 12.6 F
DWPT 10 F
Humidity 91 %
Wind Calm
Barometer 29.37 in/hg
Soil Temp. 32 F
Soil Moisture 200 (frozen)
Stay warm and stay well
Keep an log on the fire and light in the window.
John
For those interested :
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/lowest-temperatures-alaska.php
2 thoughts on “Rain Last night Cold to Arrive”
Hi John. My friend Ray and I are wondering exactly what specific models of weather equipment you use to back up your Davis VP2 weather station. I know you have shown me the large outdoor Springfield thermometer that displayed -40 a while back, but that doesn’t record max/min temps for a given time period, usually in a 24 hour period. Do you have any extra anemometers or wind vanes to back up the Davis VP2 wind equipment. Perhaps if you have pictures of it other than the ones you have already displayed would be great to show if possible. Do you have a standard, old-fashioned aneroid barometer or perhaps a barograph? We really are interested in weather instrumentation, particularly in your extreme environment. Do you have a backup manual rain gauge that would work better with snow and other frozen forms of precipitation, esp. if your VP2 gauge is not heated. Ray and I have official 4 inch cocorahs rain gauges, but they might not be tough enough for your conditions. Though I believe Rick Thoman uses one, as he is a cocorahs observer, and those particular rain gauges are required of all cocorahs observer data submissions. Thanks John!
Well an rock on an string works well. Kevin unless you have big bucks to spend there is nothing, and I repeat nothing on the US market that works after you hit 40 below. So it is back to hand recording and analog equipment. I had OS WMR 2000 here but it had the sticky finger syndrome. It was stolen when the RV was broke into. I tried an accurate unit and it didn’t make iot thru the winter and when tried to get warranty work on it done in the spring . They said sorry we don’t work on that model any more even tho it was still under 1 yr warranty. Buying an Accurite product is like just throwing money away as far as I am concern. I have couple min/max thermometers out side where I can check them if I have to. One is mercury and it stops at -35. The other is Alchol filled. Interesting the old timers use to use flow point of different alchols for temperature findings. I got 4 inch rain gauge that NWS gave me for spotting/reporting and it tough little bugger. Has froze up few times when temps dropped over night on us after rain. So far it been holding in there. In fact I forgot about it one winter when we went back to Ketch and it was ok in the spring.
As to wind it just knowing what the winds do and knowing the compass points that is comes from. Generally it is either from the west or the east here in the Basin. Like water it takes the path of least resistance.
Maybe some day I’ll get an reseach grade PWS. 5-8K until then what I have is what it will be. Interesting Rainwise will record down to 60 below according to their data but the transmitter operating range quits at -40. Go figure that one out.