Alaska Climate Research Center

The Alaska State Climate Center
The Alaska State Climate Center
The Alaska State Climate Center

Frontpage – Highlight

Meteorological Spring Has Begun — But Winter Still Has a Firm Grip on Fairbanks

March 1 marked the beginning of meteorological spring in Alaska. In Fairbanks, we are once again experiencing more than 10 hours of direct sunlight each day — a welcome milestone after the long Arctic winter. The sun climbs higher above the horizon, daylight is rapidly increasing, and there is a subtle but noticeable shift in […]

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2025 in review

Note: Please see our annual report for a more comprehensive overview of weather and climate in Alaska in 2025: ACRC Annual Report 2025  2025 temperatures Globally, 2025 will likely come in as the second warmest year on record in a near-tie with 2023 and behind 2024. This would make the past three years (2023, 2024,

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2025 Mendenhall GLOF

This year’s glacial lake outburst flood originating from the glacier damned lake in Suicide Basin occurred on August 13. The water level of the Mendenhall River at Auke Bay reached 16.65 feet, a new record that tops even the previous records set in 2023 and 2024. The water level of the crest was predicted almost

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Mendenhall GLOF has started

Suicide Basin has begun draining and the annual glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) has started.  The water level in the lake (see graph on the right) is dropping while the river level downstream is rising.  Residents of the 17ft lake level inundation zone are being advised to evacuate. See the Juneau Borough evacuation notice and Juneauflood.com for maps

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2024 in review

See our full annual report for a more in depth summary of temperature, precipitation, and notable weather events in 2024. At the global scale, 2024 was the warmest year on record in the ERA5 reanalysis as per the Copernicus Climate Change Service, breaking the previous record from 2023. Like in 2023, mean temperatures in  2024

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