Annual climate summary 2014: Central Alaska Network

Sousanes, Pamela; Hill, Ken

The Central Alaska Network’s climate monitoring program has established seventeen remote weather stations to monitor climate in Denali National Park and Preserve, Wrangell -St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The main goal of the program is to operate these remote sites for the long-term in order to help scientists and park managers understand the climate patterns across these large parks. There are five other weather and climate stations around the parks operated by various state and federal agencies that are used as index sites to compare current climate conditions in the region to the climatological normal - the average weather conditions over a 30-year period. The current normal period is 1981-2010. This report summarizes the annual and monthly temperature and precipitation deviations for the index sites and compiles monthly and annual statistics for the sites with shorter records, including five additional fire weather stations located within park boundaries. A brief synopsis of regional, national, and global climate conditions for 2014 is included for climatic context. All of the CAKN index sites had mean annual temperatures that were above the 1981-2010 normals. The winter months had the largest positive temperature deviations; in January the monthly mean temperatures ranged from ~13 to 22°F warmer than normal at the interior sites and 8°F warmer than normal along the Gulf Coast at Yakutat. The mean annual temperature at both Talkeetna and McKinley Park was 2.4°F above normal; Gulkana and Yakutat were 0.8°F warmer than normal and Eagle annual temperatures averaged near normal at just 0.2° above the 1981-2010 normal. The eastern region of CAKN was wetter than normal; McKinley Park was near normal and both Talkeetna and Yakutat were below normal in terms of total annual precipitation. The total annual precipitation in Eagle was 141% of normal with a total of 17.45 inches; January, April, June, July and December were the wettest months of the year. January precipitation totals were well above average for all the sites, especially in Gulkana with a monthly total of 2.42 inches, which is 526% of normal. The spring season was drier than normal at all the index sites, but transitioned into a very wet June and July with the monthly precipitation in June averaging ~182% of normal. August, September and December on average were near normal for the region. The average annual temperatures and total annual precipitation values once again do not do justice to the extreme variability in month to month or season to season weather statistics for 2014. 2014 was the warmest year on record for Alaska. The mean annual temperature for Alaska was 4.0°F warmer than normal and the precipitation totals were slightly above normal. Nationally temperatures were 0.5°F above the 20th century average making it the 34th warmest year on record, while globally 2014 was the warmest year on record since records began in 1880. Between May and September of 2014, the Central Alaska Network staff performed annual site maintenance at the thirteen CAKN weather stations in the three parks, three of the fire weather stations, and assisted the Natural Resources Conservation Service with maintenance of the four snow telemetry sites in the network.

Annual climate summary 2014: Central Alaska Network

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