Alaska Statewide Summary
February 2008 | Another cold start and warm finish to the month
The month began with a largely cold midwinter pattern: high pressure aloft over the Bering Sea, and cold north flow over much of the mainland, on the back side of low pressure aloft near the Yukon border. On the 11th, the low pressure area aloft shifted location rapidly westward, reaching the Seward Peninsula. This brought a sudden inflow of warmer air from the south on the 12th through the 14th, and considerably warmer weather developed over much of the mainland of Alaska. On the 22nd the pattern shifted quickly back toward cold, as high pressure aloft built over the Canadian Yukon out to the southern Bering Sea. This caused increasing cold, northeast flow over the mainland. In Southeast Alaska, onshore maritime flow was in progress for about half of the month.

The month began with a continuation of a significant cold spell in the Interior, followed by rapid warming. This combined with cooler and often windy weather during the last week of the month to produce near normal temperatures for the month as a whole over most of the Interior and Southeast Alaska. As in the month before, this overall pattern masked the great fluctuations during the month.

Out on the Bering Sea coast, the absence of any appreciable mild inflow from the south resulted in temperatures well below normal. The frequent low temperatures, which in the Alaskan winter come with clear, dry weather, resulted in less than normal snowfall over much of the state, especially in the Interior. The Arctic northwest and much of the Gulf of Alaska coast had above normal precipitation.
The eastern Interior had much colder than normal temperatures during the first 12 days of February. Tok Junction recorded a low of -70ºF on the 6th. This was the first 70 below temperature in Alaska in over 7 years. At the village of Chicken, in the east Interior, it reached -72ºF on the 7th and 8th, while at O'Brien Creek, just a few miles from Chicken, it was 72 below on the 9th. These were within 3ºF of the all-time February record of
-75ºF, set not far away at Tanacross on Feb. 3rd of 1947. Temperatures from 40° to 60° below were common over much of the east Interior through the first ten days of February.

At the end of this period of cold, the Yukon Quest dog sled race began in Fairbanks on the 9th, as the teams headed out of 40 below temperatures and thick ice fog for Whitehorse, in the Canadian Yukon. The trail conditions were unfavorable, not so much due to the cold, but due to the large areas that had been almost completely blown free of snow by windstorms during January and the first 10 days of February.

Perhaps because of the lengthening hours of daylight, this whole episode did not seem as severe as the statistics regarding temperature suggest. By the 14th the memory of cold weather had completely vanished as Interior temperatures reached the 20's and 30's above. By the 18th, the mercury rose into the 40's above in the southeast Interior, and above freezing temperatures were recorded as far away as Kotzebue on the 20th.

As temperatures quickly turned downward, blizzards sometimes accompanied by whiteout conditions developed over the Arctic coast and the Interior highlands on the 22nd. A team of hunters was lost out of Barrow, and found cold but alive on the 23rd. The increasing northeast flow during the last week of the month brought more blizzards to the Interior. On the 29th, Fairbanks recorded a peak gust of 44 mph, and had its windiest day in nearly 3 years.
The ice on lakes and rivers in the Interior grew at a fairly typical rate. At the end of the month, the ice thickness ranged from 25 to 40 inches in most recording locations. Up on the Colville River delta, near the coast of the Arctic Ocean, the ice thickness increased from 29 inches on the first of January to 5 feet at the end of February.

The weather at sea around Alaska was typically rough for the time of year. Gales blew somewhere in Alaskan waters on all but one day of the month. During the second week of the month, strong outflow of Arctic air through coastal mountain passes caused extensive storm force winds from the upper part of Southeast Alaska to Prince William Sound. On the 7th, the ferry Leconte returned to Juneau after encountering winds gusting to 90 mph off Point Retreat.

The weight of heavy snow in Southeast Alaska pushed two boats completely under water, and two half way down into the sea. All were successfully brought up. The harbor at Valdez was closed due to high winds on the 4th through the 7th, and oil transfer to tankers was suspended from the 8th through the 10th. At Nikiski, on the east shore of Cook Inlet, two freight vessels had to stop on loading on the 8th through the 10th due to the advance of heavy ice toward the terminal.

There were several large and strong low pressure systems in the Aleutians and south of the Alaska Peninsula during the last 3 weeks of February. The storm of the month was a 991 millibar (29.26 inches) low which formed over the southern Beaufort Sea on the morning of the 22nd. Westerly gales and blizzard conditions quickly developed over the Arctic coast from Prudhoe Bay to the delta of the MacKenzie River of Canada later that morning. Peak winds at recording stations were up to 55 mph. The wind and the blizzard abated on the 23rd. This outbreak was followed by strong north winds, wind chills to -55ºF and mountain blizzards in the Brooks Range on the 24th and 25th.
Statewide Extremes
Highest Temperature .54°F Petersburg and Metlakatla (19th)
Lowest Temperature -72°F Chicken (7th, 8th), O'Brien Creek (9th)
Highest Average .36.8°F Craig
Lowest Average -22.5°F Umiat
Most Precipitation .23.41" Whittier
Most Snowfall .67.4" Pelican
148.8" Mt. Alyeska summit
Temperature and Precipitation Departure Maps

Click on the graphic for an expanded view. For a high resolution image, please email us.
Pack ice in the Bering Sea was at well below normal extent of coverage as the month began, and rapidly increased to near record coverage by mid month. The ice advanced to reach Saint Paul Island on the 13th. At the end of February, the extent of ice in the Bering Sea waters of Alaska reached its highest level of the winter, and was close to record levels for the time of year. The ice edge reached Saint George Island on the 29th.

In Cook Inlet, there was a rapid increase in ice down to Homer, the north half of Kachemak Bay and over the entire west half of the Inlet down past Cape Douglas. The ice began to retreat during the third week of the month. The ice edge receded to Cape Kasilof on the east side of the Inlet, and much of the ice offshore from the west coast was cleared.

Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska were mostly around 2ºF colder than normal. However, strong offshore winds on the north Gulf of Alaska coast during the third week of the month caused upwelling and surface water temperatures to briefly rise from 2 to 6ºF above normal. To the west, surface ocean temperatures were near normal in Aleutian waters and from 2 to 3ºF above normal up to the edge of the pack ice in the Bering Sea.
Posted: March 18, 2008

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.