For a brief moment Sunday, the southernmost tip of Alaska was warmer than the southernmost tip of Florida.
At 2:27 p.m. in Metlakatla, it was 65 degrees. Four hours to the east, it was 62 degrees in Key West.
It was the warmest day ever recorded in January in Alaska as a slug of tropical air arrived in Southeast Alaska. The previous record was 62, which has been reached several times since 1940 but was never surpassed until this week. On Sunday, Metlakatla topped out at 66 degrees, but a tide gauge in Ketchikan recorded a temperature of 67 degrees that will now be the state’s all-time January high if verified by the National Weather Service.
Across Southeast, seasonably cold and snowy weather abruptly gave way to unprecedented warmth this weekend as a surge of moisture and warm air arrived from the central Pacific. While the first batch of moisture turned to snow amid the dome of cold air that had settled over the region, the continued Pacific surge pushed the cold air over the coast range and made itself home in Alaska.
Sitka, Craig, Klawock, Metlakatla and Annette Island all saw their all-time warmest January temperatures. Many other places, including Juneau, saw record highs for the date but not the month.
In Juneau, it reached 52 degrees, breaking the record of 50 set in 1981. The all-time warmest January day here is 60 degrees, which happened Jan. 20, 1942.
On Monday, Eaglecrest Ski Area reported the Porcupine chairlift operating despite base temperatures of 48 degrees.
Despite a brief cold spell about the middle of the month, temperatures in Juneau averaged 30 degrees through Monday morning, 1.9 degrees above normal.
Friday and Saturday brought 5.4 inches of snowfall to the capital city, but snow levels here remain below normal. So far this winter, Juneau has seen 35.9 inches of snow at the airport. That figure is 5 inches below normal for this point in the year, and Juneau hasn’t had a normal winter for snowfall (86.7 inches) since the winter of 2013-2014.
According to Weather Service forecasters here, the unseasonably warm conditions will moderate and return to normal ranges by the end of the week. The Weather Service expects temperatures to remain above freezing until Thursday night, with rainfall chances diminishing throughout the week.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com or call 523-2258.
Frozen ice flows off the Flume Trail on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018. (Angelo Saggiomo | Juneau Empire)
