Climate monitoring in the southwest Alaska network: Annual report for the 2010 hydrologic year

Lindsay, Chuck

The Southwest Alaska Inventory and Monitoring Network monitors climate across a region that includes five national park units: Alagnak Wild River, Aniakchack National Monument and Preserve, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Kenai Fjords National Park, and Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. To date, monitoring efforts have focused on the placement and installation of new weather stations and the development, testing, and implementation of a protocol for monitoring climate. In addition to operating and maintaining nine weather stations in three network parks, weather observations are obtained from an additional 24 stations across the region of interest. This report, the second in an annual series, summarizes weather observations from the recent hydrologic year and provides a regional and historical climate context. The Southwest Alaska Network region was warmer and slightly drier than normal during the 2010 hydrologic year (October 2009 through September 2010). Compared to the climatological normal (the prevailing set of weather conditions calculated over a 30-year period, currently 1971-2000), annual mean temperatures for six long-term weather stations were 0.0 to +5.1 F above normal. Total annual precipitation was 75% to 97% of normal. In general, precipitation across the Alaska Peninsula and southern Kenai Peninsula was closer to normal than precipitation across the northern Aleutian Range, southern Alaska Range, and the northern Kenai Peninsula. Late spring and mid-summer were unseasonably cool and wet across the region. Warmer than normal conditions during the 2010 hydrologic year represent a change from regional climatic conditions during the previous four hydrologic years, which were colder than normal. Drier than normal conditions are consistent with regional climatic conditions during the previous four hydrologic years. All nine weather stations operated by the Southwest Alaska Network were maintained during the 2010 hydrologic year. Kenai Fjords National Park continued planning for the installation of a snowpack telemetry station near Exit Glacier and purchased a remote automated weather station for future installation in Aialik Bay. Representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducted site evaluations in Katmai National Park and Preserve in order to evaluate the possible installation of a Climate Reference Network Station.

Climate monitoring in the southwest Alaska network: Annual report for the 2010 hydrologic year

Series

Collections