Alaska Statewide Summary
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Alaska Statewide Summary
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| July 2007 | Warmth for much of Alaska during July | ||||||||||||||||
| A blocking high pressure system over the Alaska mainland during the first part of July gave way to a Gulf of Alaska low pressure system which weakened halfway through the month. Weak circulation around a low inbound from Siberia spread over the Alaska mainland in the third week of the month and for the final week of July the low moved south to the Gulf of Alaska. This resulted primarily in a fair weather picture for much of the State during July, especially the first half. A number of stations set some calendar day high temperature records during the month. Most of the state was warmer than normal on average, especially the northern Interior. Temperatures along the southern coast were just a few degrees below normal. Rainfall was generally of ample proportions in the central Interior, however it was dry in the Arctic and west coast. Nome had its 7th warmest July in 100 years of records, and in Fairbanks the populace was delighted with what was shaping up to be one of the most gorgeous summers in memory. There was hardly any wildfire action compared to the three preceding years. At the end of the month, 365,372 acres of wild lands had burned - a total far less compared to normal or greater than normal years. In the second half of the month, smoke from a large number of fires became widespread, and cleared as August approached. |
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| A number of locations had numerous thunderstorms during July, notably Wiseman, in the central Interior, with thunderstorms on 15 days of the month. Otherwise, thunderstorms were distributed fairly evenly through the month, though most of the lightning strikes recorded on the Alaska Lightning Detection System were during the first half of July. At the Fox 2SE reporting station, a storm producing 3/8” diameter hail came on the 15th, and fell to 2 inches deep on the ground. Interior rivers stayed within reasonable limits and no flooding occurred. However, there was flooding on the Taku River southeast of Juneau, Alaska on the 22nd and 23rd, due to the Taku Glacier's periodic release of a glacial dammed lake. This type of flooding has been known for some time and no flooding of structures occurred. Weather at sea was decidedly quiet compared to most months. Gales blew somewhere in Alaskan waters on only six days of the month. The most energetic weather system of the month was a 991 mb (29.26”) low pressure system which entered the western Gulf of Alaska on the 24th and continued to make rough weather and high seas off Kodiak Island through the 25th. At Barrow on the 22nd, a 20-foot open skiff got caught in a fresh breeze 27 miles from town and just 100 yards from shore. The boat began taking on water in 4-foot seas. A launch from a nearby Canadian icebreaker, the Sir Wilfred Laurier, came promptly to their rescue. Sea surface temperatures warmed to 3ºF warmer than normal in the southeast Gulf of Alaska and 1 to 2ºF above normal around Kodiak Island by the end of the month. In the Bering Sea, surface waters warmed to 1ºF above normal in the middle of the Bering to 2 to 3ºF above normal along the Alaska coast as August approached. The pack ice from Barrow east to Mackenzie Bay continued to diminish, though some still lingered at month's end. Surface temperatures in the Chukchi Sea were 2 to 4 ºF warmer than normal by the end of July. Volcanic eruptions in the Aleutians picked up again, which is not unusual. Indeed, eruptions were also occurring over on the Russian side, on the Kamchatka Peninisula. Klyuchevskoy Volcano, which is in Kamchatka, was erupting on the 1st of the month, with its ash cloud drifting down into the central Aleutians, at altitudes up to 32,000 feet. This eruption lasted a full day, providing some great material for volcanologists from the nearby University of Alaska in Fairbanks. |
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Click on the graphic for an expanded view. For a high resolution image, please email us.
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| Posted: September 6, 2007 Summary information is compiled and produced monthly by the Fairbanks Forecast Office of the National Weather Service and the Alaska Climate Research Center, with contributions by Ted Fathauer, Anton Prechtel, and Martha Shulski. Portions of this summary appear in Weatherwise magazine. Preliminary climatological data are used for the graphical products. For official data, please contact us or the National Climatic Data Center. |
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