2007 Year in Review - Fairbanks
|
||||||||
|
2007 Year in Review - Fairbanks
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
| A nice long summer and continued low snowfall for 2007 |
2007 Statistics
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A long cold spell to begin spring, a beautiful long and warm, but not hot, summer with ample rainfall, and a meager start to the 2007-08 snow season. These were some of the weather highlights in Fairbanks for 2007. Overall, the year was just a bit warmer than normal with a mean annual temperature of 27.9°F, almost 1°F above average. Accordingly, the annual heating degree day total was about 380 units below average with 13598 units. Precipitation totaled about an inch more than normal with 11.35 inches for the year, though snowfall was only half of the normal 68 inches with 33.5 for the calendar year. 2007 started off with wide temperature swings that are certainly characteristic of winter in the far north. After a relatively mild mid-January to mid-February period, the mercury plummeted and temperatures were well below normal through all of March. The average temperature for the months of February and March (-6.6°F, 10.3°F below normal) comes in a very close second to 1972 for the coldest on record. Even more impressive, however, is the February 16 to March 31 average temperature of -10.2°F; by far the coldest on record for this period. As would be expected with the cold, and generally clear days, snowfall was light during this time. April marked a significant turnaround as mean daily temperatures were above average for nearly the entire month. Even a daily high temperature (56°F) tied a record on the 9th of April. Aside from only a scattering of days, the warm weather continued on through the summer season and into September. The average temperature for the summer (June, July, and August) was 62.2°F, making 2007 with 5th warmest on record in Fairbanks. The 4 warmer summers have all occurred since 1975 and recall that just 3 years ago was the warmest summer on record of 2004. Even though the 2007 summer ranks 5th warmest, there were no real extreme hot days; no day with a high temperature above 85°F. Though the high of 82°F on August 17th did break the record high for that date. What seemed a bit unusual was to have both a warmer and wetter than normal summer. However, precipitation came mostly from localized convective-type showers, and the totals varied for different locations across the area. At the airport, however, the summer total was 7.07 inches, about 2 inches more than normal. The growing season was longer than normal as the first date of freeze was not until September 21st. The last date of freeze in the spring was May 9th, allowing for a growing season length of 134 days (about 20 days longer than normal). October was a bit cooler than normal and snowfall a few inches less than normal for the month. The low snowfall continued through to the end of the year and only 19.7 inches had fallen by the start of 2008, a bit less than half the normal cumulative total. At the airport, 9 inches of snow was on the ground at the end of December, also about half of the normal amount. Temperatures were warmer than normal for November and December on average. There was a significant warm-up around Thanksgiving as temperatures soared into the 40s thanks to a Chinook event. In contrast, there was only one brief cold spell lasting just a few days around mid-December as temperatures were down below -40°F for the first time of the 2007-08 winter season. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Click on the images for a larger view.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or comments? Please contact the Alaska Climate Research Center. Preliminary climatological data are used for this summary. Please report any errors found to the Climate Center Posted: 11 January, 2008 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||