Rare east winds blowing over the mountains caused downslope warming and set temperatures soaring from NW Oregon north ot SE Alaska. Seattle just had their warmest March days ever. Look at some of these temperatures during the late afternoon:
Record highs were shattered! Look below at some record high temperatures compared to the old daily record highs:
Farther north, temperatures soared into the 60s in SE Alaska (yeah, they get to 60 before we do here in Michigan!). It was 66 in Ketchikan, Petersburg and Klawok. Records were set at Sitka (63), Annette (62), Cordova (61), Yakutat (60) and Juneau (59). Some stations had +30-degree diurnal temperature swings.
Here’s a pic. from the FAA webcam at King Cove, Alaska. Looks like snow blowing off the top of the mountains. Barrow (Utqiaġvik), AK had a high of +1 and a low of -18. They were seeing some rare sujnshine. They have had 38.1″ of snow since July 1 and that’s 7.8″ above average (they typically get less than half the snowfall that we get. They have 10″ on the ground. Fairbanks had a high of 39 and a low of 11 and they have 15″ on the ground. Nome has the most of the primary reporting stations with 58″ on the ground and 101.7″ for the winter – 38.9″ above average-to-date. McGrath, another snowy place is up to 94.6″ for the winter and that’s 6.4″ above average-to-date.
Grand Rapids added 0.6″ of snow yesterday (Wed.) and G.R. is now at 76.4″ for the season. Kalamazoo picked up 0.5″ to boost their season total to 76.5″.
