This month was the warmest ever recorded in Juneau, according to measurements taken by the National Weather Service.
The capital city wasn’t alone in the achievement ─ Skagway, Klawock, Sitka, Haines, Petersburg and Ketchikan all recorded their warmest March since modern recordkeeping began. For Skagway, that’s more than a century ago.
On Thursday, the last day of March, Klawock recorded a temperature of 71 degrees. According to the National Weather Service, that was the first time a 70-degree temperature has ever been recorded in Alaska in March. It broke the previous March temperature record, 69 degrees, set in Ketchikan in 1915.
Juneau saw a 58-degree temperature that was the third-warmest March day ever seen in Juneau and a record for the date. The all-time March record is 61 degrees, set March 21, 1998.
For the month, Juneau averaged 39.9 degrees at the airport, the city’s official measuring point. That was 6.1 degrees above average and three-tenths of a degree above the previous record, set in 1984.
There were seven days with daily record-high temperatures in Juneau, according to the Weather Service.
In Skagway, temperatures averaged 42.6 degrees at the town airport. That was 9.3 degrees above normal and shattered the previous record, set at 40.9 degrees in 1915.
In addition to being warm, March was drier than normal in Juneau.
According to Weather Service measurements, 2.17 inches of rain fell at the airport, less than two-thirds of normal for March. Only a trace of snow was recorded at the airport, much less than normal.
March’s warm conditions are expected to lapse this afternoon as another batch of cool rain moves across Alaska.
