May temperatures in Alaska were generally cooler than normal and marked overall by a complete lack of warm weather anywhere in the state, said Rick Thoman, climate specialist for the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP).
The exceptions were portions of western Alaska that were a little bit warmer than normal, while portions of the Brooks Range and North Slope had the coolest May in more than decade.
Thoman’s climate summary shows that this was the coolest May since 2013 for the North Slope Borough, the upper Yukon Valley and Fairbanks North Star Borough – although 2013 was much cooler in all these regions.
Thoman has become a household name in many Alaska communities where extreme weather conditions have been increasing.
Since June of 2023, he has been mentioned in 279 Alaska news stories from 20 communities in Alaska, 984 stories from all U.S. states; and 365 stories from 42 countries around the world.
ERA5 refers to the global climate reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) from January 1940 to the present. ERA5 provide hourly estimates of a large number of atmospheric, land and oceanic climate variables.
Reanalysis is a process that combines observations from various sources (like satellites and weather stations) with weather models to create a globally complete and consistent dataset representing past weather and climate conditions.
In essence, ERA5 is a state-of-the-art global reanalysis dataset produced by ECMWF that provides a comprehensive and detailed picture of the Earth’s atmosphere, land surface, and ocean waves over a long period – primarily used for climate research and meteorological studies.
In his monthly climate summary released on June 7, Thoman said that possibly the most unusual aspect of May temperatures was the complete lack of warm weather anywhere in the state.
Fairbanks failed to reach 70 degrees and Utqiagvik failed to get above freezing for the first time in May since 2007. At Deadhorse, the state airport for the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, this was the first May without the temperature getting above freezing since climate observations began in late 1968.
The highest reliable temperature reported in the state in May was 71 at a number of locations – including Fort Yukon, Tanana and Kaltag in the Interior, and the Amber Lake cooperative site in Southcentral, southwest of Talkeetna.
While direct comparisons are difficult because of varying station availability, this appears to be the lowest statewide high temperature since 1971, when no place in the state reached 70 degrees in May, Thoman said. (In May 1911, the highest reported temperature was 70 degrees, but there were of course very few climate stations active in Alaska at that time.)
As for precipitation, the big story for May was the excessive rainfall over parts of the state – but especially in Southeast Alaska, where many places had two to four times normal, he said. Long term climate sites in southern Southeast Alaska all set may records – including 25.58 inches at the Ketchikan Airport, 19.83 inches at Metlakatla, and 18.38 inches in Petersburg.
