Alaska Plunges into Deep Freeze as Rest of Nation Thaws

Santas Take Over The Slopes For Charity

It might not feel like Christmas week for many in the Lower 48, but some Alaska residents may beg to differ as a cold outbreak has plunged parts of the state into a deep freeze.

Temperatures in Alaska's interior plunged into the 50s below zero in at least two locations north of Fairbanks (Bettles and Norutak Lake) Thursday morning. Temperatures remained in the 40s and 50s below zero midday Thursday in parts of the interior and Allakaket reported a temperature of 57 below at 11 a.m.

Lows plummeted into the 50s below zero once again on Friday morning in portions of interior Alaska, including Bettles which set a new daily record low of 56 below zero early Friday.

The National Weather Service in Fairbanks issued wind chill warnings for parts of Alaska's Arctic coast and other locations in northern Alaska for wind chills that could be as low as 65 degrees below zero through Saturday.

Temperatures will generally be 10 to 20 degrees colder than average for late December, which means most areas will dip far below zero at night and remain below zero during the day. Meanwhile, a broad area of the Lower 48 will have temperatures 10 to 30 degrees warmer than average

"Areas west of Fairbanks will likely see persistent temperatures of 35 to 55 degrees below zero (or colder) through the weekend," the National Weather Service in Fairbanks said in a special weather statement issued early Tuesday. "Many villages west of Fairbanks will likely see ice fog into the weekend."

Our current forecast calls for morning lows in the 20s or 30s below zero for cities like Fairbanks and Bethel into the weekend.

Anchorage, which has a marine influence from the Gulf of Alaska, will not be as cold, but temperatures are still forecast to drop to near zero Saturday morning.

As cold as these temperatures will be, they probably won't set records. Record lows over the next few days in Fairbanks, for example, are in the minus 50s and 60s.

However, the latest long-range temperature outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center suggests this cold pattern will settle back in over much of Alaska after that time, lingering into the first full week of January.

"The very cold pattern is expected to continue through next week; however, at this point, there is still a great deal of uncertainty in the details after the weekend," NWS-Fairbanks said.

For many parts of Alaska, this is the coldest air so far this season.

Record Warm Year Still Likely

This week's cold blast in Alaska will be a sharp contrast to much of the rest of 2019.

According to Alaska-based climatologist Brian Brettschneider, despite this current cold snap, 2019 is still likely to be the state's record warmest year dating to the mid 1920s.

The state's average temperature between January and November was 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average.

(MORE: 2019's Weirdest Weather Events)

In Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, America's northernmost town, each day from June 24 through Dec. 19 had above-average temperatures – an incredible streak of 177 consecutive days without a below-average daily temperature – according to climatologist Dr. Brian Brettschneider.

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