On Sunday, 19.4 degrees Celsius was measured on the island of Kodiak, southwest Alaska. It is seven degrees warmer than the previous heat record in what is by far the coldest state in the USA, writes BBC.
The unusual weather does not stop here.
Other records are set in other parts of Alaska. In the southeastern city of Ketchikan, temperatures dropped to minus 18 degrees on December 25. It is one of the coldest first Christmas days in the city’s history.
«Ismageddon»
Local authorities are now warning about what they refer to as “icemageddon”.
Roads across the Interior & #Fairbanks are covered in ice. So now what? Ice is extremely difficult to remove once it has binded to the road surface. Even though air temps were warm during #icemageddon2021, roads were at sub-zero temps, which caused ice to bind to the surface. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/CWUSu761gO
— Alaska DOT&PF (@AlaskaDOTPF) December 27, 2021
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The extreme weather conditions mean that large amounts of rain and snow cause ice as hard as cement to cover several roads in the state.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities explains that the thick ice is dangerous for drivers.
– Ice is terribly difficult to remove once it has adhered to the road surface. Even though the air is warm, the surface temperature on the roads is below zero degrees, the ministry writes on Twitter.
May be the warmest New Year’s Eve ever
Difficult conditions
There are warm air currents from Hawaii that make the usually cold and dry time more humid. Heavy rainfall and changing temperatures have resulted in major power outages and closed roads.
– There is no easy solution for the ice-covered roads, so conditions may remain difficult for some time to come.
The ice will probably cling to the roads until March or April, climate researcher Rick Thoman at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment tells the BBC.
Record precipitation
The worst winter storm since 1937 hit the Christmas town of Fairbanks this Christmas. It had almost 25 centimeters of snow with it. The frequent snowfall buried the only grocery store in a small town outside Fairbanks, says Thoman.
Here, too, records are set of the less pleasant variety.
In a message on Twitter he says that Fairbanks has set a new annual precipitation record, with a total of 472.9 millimeters of precipitation so far this year.
SNOW: The weather station in Denali is covered with snow. Photo: Twitter / @NWSFairbanks
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In a video shared by the National Weather Service Fairbanks, one can see the violent snowstorm that moves through the city on Wednesday.
– The visibility will at times be 400 meters or lower, they slice.
The climate researcher believes that the extreme weather contrasts are due to global warming.
– When all the pieces fall into place in this increasingly heated world, we will have these unpredictable weather periods. That is what we expect, he tells the BBC.
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