2 days ago
Alaska gets its first-ever heat advisories from National Weather Service
An aerial view of Fairbanks is seen in summer in an undated photo. Temperatures are expected to soar into the high 80s in Alaska's second-largest city and surrounding Interior Alaska areas, prompting the state's first National Weather Service heat advisories. (Photo by Jacob Boomsma via Getty Images Plus)
With temperatures forecast to soar as high as 89 degrees in Interior Alaska, the National Weather Service has issued its first-ever heat advisories for the state.
The advisories, which started Thursday and are in effect through Sunday, warn residents in the Fairbanks area and a wider swath of Interior Alaska to be careful about outdoor activities over the weekend.
'Take extra precautions when working in the sun. Wear sunscreen and lightweight, loose fitting clothing. Try to limit strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Take action when you see symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke,' the National Weather Service said Friday in its special statement.
For context, the normal June high temperature in Fairbanks is 72 degrees.
While Alaska has occasionally had such high temperatures before, the practice of issuing heat advisories is new in the farthest-north state, said Brian Brettschneider, a National Weather Service climate scientist.
The service officially added heat advisories to its list of Alaska warnings earlier this year, Brettschneider said. The decision stems from the state's experiences in 2019, when an ultra-hot summer was marked by long-lasting wildfires that poured smoke into populated areas and a record 90-degree temperature in Anchorage, the state's largest city.
'We kind of realized, 'Whoa, maybe extreme heat is something that we need to think more about.' And even though we've had occasional extreme heat in the past, it really kind of brought to the forefront that we need to think about it as part of our mission for protecting life and property,' he said.
Temperatures in the 80s might not seem extreme in the Lower 48 states, but they can have big impacts on Alaska residents, Brettschneider said.
Part of that is because the homes and other elements of the built environment are structured for a cold climate, he said. 'In Alaska, our homes are built to retain every molecule of heat, basically, and we have 20 hours of daylight,' he said. And part of that is because at Alaska's high latitude, the angle of the sun is low, 'so the solar energy is penetrating deep into the houses' and is otherwise unrelenting nearly around the clock, he said.
'What might be considered pleasant weather in the Lower 48 really has an outsized impact on our comfort and our health here,' he said.
Research led by the University of Alaska Anchorage has found that 70 degrees is generally the threshold at which Alaskans begin to suffer heat-related health problems.
Brettschneider said the current heat baking Interior Alaska is the product of a big ridge of high pressure. That has replaced what was a persistent low-pressure system that previously kept parts of the state unseasonably cool.
Fairbanks' record high temperature was 96 degrees, recorded in 1969, Brettschneider said.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
