Winter Has Not Died, It’s In Alaska

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Harold Ambler

Snow and cold this winter have both been epic in our northernmost state.Alaska National Guardsmen clear a building roof in Cordova, near Anchorage. Credit: Spc. Balinda O'Neal, Alaska National Guard Public Affairs.

From Anthony Watts comes news that the United States’ all-time record low temperature was on the verge of being broken in Alaska this week when the temperature sensor failed:

Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment.

While the continental USA has a mild winter and has set a number of high temperature records in the last week and pundits ponder whether they will be blaming the dreaded “global warming” for those temperatures, Alaska and Canada have been suffering through some of the coldest temperatures on record during the last week.

For example in  Circle Hot Springs, AK on Sunday, 29 Jan 2012 the HIGH temperature was a blistering -49°F, breaking the  -44°F record which has stood since 1917. It gets better.

That same day in Circle Hot Springs the low temperature was  -58°F   breaking the old record of  -52°F set  in 1941 by six degrees.

Here’s a list of temperature records in Alaska from the past week:

Anthony’s full treatment is here: click

Question: If the all-time temperature record nearly broken for the entire country were a warm record, would NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and CNN have produced segments on this latest proof of global warming? You know the answer to that question.

About Harold Ambler

I am a lifelong environmentalist. I started my journalism career at The New Yorker, where I worked as a copy editor. Since then, my own work has appeared in The New York Daily News, The National Review Online, The Atlantic Wire, The Huffington Post, The Berkeley Daily Planet, The Providence Journal, Brown Alumni Monthly, The Narragansett Times, Rhode Island Monthly, and Providence Business News.
This entry was posted in Climate change, crying wolf, don't sell your coat, global cooling, global warming, weather, winter. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Winter Has Not Died, It’s In Alaska

  1. Paolo says:
    February 5, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Dear Mr Ambler,

    I like your style and I have ordered a copy of your book.
    I haven’t received it yet, but in the meanwhile I haven’t sold my coat anyway. Indeed I’m enjoying wintertime in my bithplace. Since last week, here, on the Adriatic sea we have had on average half a meter of snow and temperatures have fallen down with some peaks up to minus 15 °C, when it wasn’t snowing. On the hills of Romagna there is even more snow, as far as 1.50m on the average. Forsights aren’t better for the incoming week, but sincerely I’m not loosing at all the hope to see the again spring sun, as every year, at the latest starting by end of March.

    Best Wishes from the last Capital of the Roman Empire, Ravenna, Italy.

    M.Sc. P.Phys. Paolo Errani

  2. hengistmcstone says:
    February 5, 2012 at 11:09 am

    I like it. It’s cold in Alaska . In January no less.

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