When temperatures are warm enough, it's a time many Alaskans take their families out swimming. Sometimes the fun comes along with an annoying rash known as 'Swimmer's Itch.'
Southeast Alaska has dropped into drought conditions off and on for the past two or more years. Spring rains and snow melt helped refill lakes and reservoirs but a dry, hot July pushed the southern Panhandle into a deeper deficit.
Michael Hamilton, who worked at Valdez Heli-Ski Guides, died Monday in one of numerous avalanches that have been occurring in the Southcentral Alaska backcountry recently. Several recent large wet slab avalanches reported throughout the Chugach are believed to be connected to a buried crust that formed around late October, she said. A warm storm system last week also weakened the snowpack because it added weight and heat.
Lytton, British Columbia, broke successive Canadian heat records early this week, with temperatures peaking at 121 degrees on Tuesday. Then the fires swept in.
Environment Canada said the weather system shattered more than 100 heat records across British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and Northwest Territories.
The average temperature in July was 48.4 degrees — 6.7 degrees above normal, with 11 hot days in a row. Such extreme warmth can accelerate the greening and permafrost thaw on the North Slope.
Two popular rivers are being closed to fishing because almost no cohos are making it upstream.
Avalanche monitors say danger remains high in Turnagain Pass, Girdwood and Portage.
Auto shops are seeing more business because of damaged tires, and drivers are often inching through a messy maze of bad road conditions. Road crews are making headway but still catching up from unfavorable weather last month.
The collapse last week of an ice shelf the size of New York City was the first time scientists have ever seen an ice shelf collapse in this cold area of Antarctica.
Anchorage saw temperatures spike above 60 degrees every day in June for the first time in recorded history. The city also experienced near record low precipitation: Only 1/10 of an inch of rain fell the entire month.
Aerial surveys this September and October show the bowheads aren’t where they usually are.
“The growth-cycle this year is unprecedented,” with carrots, peas and broccoli heads “as big as a platter,” farmers market vendors say.
A power line fell on a car in Portland, killing three people and injuring a baby during an ice storm that turned roads and mountain highways treacherous in the Pacific Northwest.
January has so far been colder than average and the trend is expected to continue, breaking the 22-month trend of consecutively warmer-than-normal monthly temperatures.
The tragedy came after several days of dire warnings about the dangers of river travel due to an unusually early warm-up. Search and rescuers crawled onto weak ice, open water all around, to help retrieve the survivors.
Some mushers worried what the warm weather would mean for the trail ahead.
Much of Siberia this year has had unseasonably high temperatures, leading to sizable wildfires.
The United States’ northernmost city plummeted to a bone-chilling minus 20 degrees Wednesday morning, beating out the previous daily record set in 1973.
The agency said it has certified a 100.4-degree reading in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk last year as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic.
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