Listener Question: Fairbanks Vs Barrow |
 Dave Thurlow, Host |
It's a listener question today here on The Weather Notebook from one of our many listeners across the world of weather, Dave Runfola from Alaska:
"I listen to your show on KUAC-FM in Fairbanks. During the winter I get a lot of friends and family from the Lower-48 asking me this question: Why is it that when we see Alaska temperatures on the nationwide weather reports, Fairbanks is usually so much colder than the rest of the state; even colder than towns as far to the north as Barrow?
I'm a high school teacher by trade, so I've answered this question many times--for students as well as for curious friends and family. But I'm getting a little tired of explaining it to everyone. Could you explain it on the air? Hopefully, the folks who have yet to ask me won't need; that is, if they listen to "The Weather Notebook" as faithfully as I do."
Anything for the Fairbanks faithful. The average annual temperature in Fairbanks is 26, in Barrow it's 9. So why the reports of it being colder in Fairbanks. Well in the extreme, Fairbanks can be colder because of something called radiational cooling on clear calm nights in the Alaskan interior. It just may be these cold night temperatures - as low as 66 below -- that make the news. You see up on the Arctic coast in Barrow, radiational cooling doesn't kick in as much as it does in Faibanks so the record low there is a balmy -54. Heat (if you can call it that) doesn't escape to space over Barrow as it does in Fairbanks. So it's in these extreme conditions that Fairbanks can be colder than Barrow. But on the average it's Barrow, the northernmost city in the country, that is by far the coldest.
Our show is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory where the average temperature is the same as it is in Fairbanks. If you have a question please call 888-rain-001.