Annual climate summary 2018: Central Alaska Network
Sousanes PJ and Hill K. 2020. Annual climate summary 2018: Central Alaska Network. Natural Resource Data Series. NPS/CAKN/NRDS—2020/1266. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The Central Alaska Network’s climate monitoring program operates 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 (Figure 1). The main goal of the program is to maintain 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 weather stations around the parks that are 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 climate period used for reference is based on data collected from 1981 through 2010. Unfortunately, a 30-year reference period for Alaska fails to capture the rapidly changing environment we live in. This report presents annual and monthly temperature and precipitation deviations for the index sites and monthly and annual statistics for NPS sites with shorter records. A brief synopsis of regional climate conditions for 2018 is included for climatic context. 2018 was the second warmest year on record for Alaska, after 2016. Each of the last five years have been in the top ten warmest years on record for the state with records dating back to 1925. The mean annual temperatures at the CAKN index sites at McKinley Park, Gulkana, and Eagle were, on average, 1.1°C (2.1°F) warmer than the 1981-2010 normal. Annual precipitation totals across the CAKN region varied from 86% of normal in Yakutat to 160% of normal in Eagle. During the summer of 2018, the Central Alaska Network staff conducted annual site maintenance at the thirteen CAKN climate stations, four snow telemetry sites, and assisted with maintenance of three fire weather stations. All of the 2018 CAKN RAWS weather data and corresponding metadata are available through the Integrated Resource Management Applications (IRMA) Data Store at https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2254700.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Sousanes, Pamela; Hill, Ken
- Date of Issue
- 2020-02
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- CAKN , DENA , NRSS , WRST , YUCH
- Keywords
- Alaska, CAKN, Central Alaska Inventory and Monitoring, climate, weather