Blog: Dermot Cole
Circle Hot Springs cools to 53 below; Fairbanks may hit 50 below Tuesday night
Published Monday, December 29, 2008
The temperature dropped to 53 below overnight at Circle Hot Springs and O'Brien Creek on the Taylor Highway, the lowest figure reported by the National Weather Service for the region.
It was 52 below at Beaver Creek on the Yukon Flats and 47 below in Central, Eagle and Tok.
It was 40 below in Nenana, Delta and at Fairbanks International Airport. The coldest local temperature was 44 below at Eielson Air Force Base, while it was 43 below just outside North Pole at Woodsmoke.
At higher elevations, it was much warmer. The coldest overnight temperature at Cleary Summit was 13 below.
Lows of 15 below to 45 below are expected tonight and 15 below to 50 below readings are expected Tuesday night, the weather service said.
The 35-degree range in temperatures from the lowlands to the hills is more substantial than the 20-degree differences that are routine throughout the winter.
This is not an extreme cold snap by Fairbanks standards, but since the low temperatures are expected to continue for at least another week, the problems people have in dealing with cold weather will increase.
If you have comments, questions or suggestions, write me at cole@newsminer.com
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My Buddy lives right by the Hot Springs. I wonder who sent in this reading and if it is verified? Up at the runway, it is probably 100ft. higher than the Hot Springs themselves.
Just talked to my Buddy at the Hot Springs. He said that the temp is taken down in "Wrinkleville" at the official station that is kept there. He said that they did, in fact, have -53 and he had -47 at his house.
Anyone remember when the last sixty below was?
how the heck could it not hit freezing at your house on collage road hairbrain?
hairbrain, you do realize that freezing is 32 degrees right?
He emits a lot of hot air.....
redredrose...I believe it was January 1989
oldakcuss, you may be right...I am trying to think back...I know we were below -60 for days and days here off Badger Road that time. That was right after we put on that dog race the Summit Challenge or summit plummet as I like to call it and it was -14 below when it started and by the end of the first day at Chatanika, it was around -40 and then by 66 mile Steese it was -50 and stayed that way the whole rest of the race. When it finished at Ivory Jacks, it was -43 and it just got colder!!!
Not to worry folks,
"Alaska officials may ease the terms of its royalty oil supply contract with Flint Hills Resources for supplies to its 220,000 b/d refinery at North Pole, according to a state official Friday."
"Flint Hills is to review the refinery's operating problems in a --closed-door meeting-- with [Alaska] legislators January 14 in Anchorage."
http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/6052608.x...
Will our Flint Hills libertian friends at Koch/CATO at their North Pole Alaska Refinery... now ask for an Alaskan State government-sponsored bailout, if their "Hail Mary pass" speculation on crude oil futures bets goes sour and the price of crude oil continues to decline?
As they say on Wall Street: "Privatize profits and socialize losses".
"Yukonjohn - 12/29/2008, 10:26 p.m.
oldakcuss, you may be right...I am trying to think back...I know we were below -60 for days and days here off Badger Road that time."
yeah same deal. that '89 winter was ridiculous. also off Badger Road that winter i saw -71 on a thermometer that otherwise was dead-accurate every other time of the year. i had no reason to doubt it.
that cold lasted quite some time too. made -20 seem like a regular heatwave.
"siamiam - 12/29/2008, 6:24 p.m.
how the heck could it not hit freezing at your house on collage road hairbrain?"
maybe he means inside of his house? cause that is the only way that statement could be even remotely accurate or based in any semblance of fact. hahahaha!
yeah same deal. that '89 winter was ridiculous. also off Badger Road that winter i saw -71 on a thermometer that otherwise was dead-accurate every other time of the year. i had no reason to doubt it.
x23 That is the same thing out here. I saw -72, probably at the same time. My neighbor was sitting here one morning drinking whiskey and he says....Maybe it will stay like this a few more days, then cool off a little!! He had been here since 1958 and just thought is was long overdue!!!
I remember the coldspell of 1989 when it hit -45 to -55 below in town for most of the three and a half weeks and I was stuck at Ed Parsons' Oil City complex by the airport helping out at the KINQ radio station as my car was solid frozen parked there too (next to the pristine Packard).....
I lived in Salcha and worked at Sophies Station at that time as it was extremely hard to get a ride after the first week of the coldspell as other friends' rigs were having tires go flat and they got tired of playing taxi to everyone else that were a lot more nearby than me for their commuting routes you can say.....as my car didnt have a suitable heater to keep warm anyway - it was bad enough to have to commute 30 miles at -20 below with no heater as it was (which I had done for four winters before I started getting real bad colds a lot more often)....At least I got shuttle van rides to and from work as the driver had to go to the airport everyday and Oil City was along the way so it worked out for me.
It hit -61 at the house in Salcha the last time I was there upon the first week of the 89 coldspell before I stayed at Oil City for roughly the next three weeks after that... I also remember the second week of the coldspell there was a break in the temperature for a day and a half as it warmed up to a balmy -28 below daytime high while I was staring at the hazy sun , actually feeling the heat from it for an hour while we were outside for 30 minutes walking around in T-shirts on that day , then sunset came and SLAM the temp sinks right back to -45 below....
We got a hold of Tom Snapp (when I was at the radio station) and had to inform him when we first heard the tragic deadly crash of the Canadian Soldiers in the C-131 Herc at the Ft.Wainwright runway when the barometer hit 31.45mb which is the all time high recorded air pressure to this day at the airport - the adjusted instrument misreading of the altimeter in the cockpit was believed to be the factor in the crash ... this same record hi air pressure pocket we witnessed that came into the Tanana Valley drifted from Siberia that recorded an all time high for their area which registered 32.02mb.
I think the last time Fairbanks witnessed -60 below was in 1993 (cant remember the month) as I drove my mom to FMH to save her job as it was between -57 to -65 for four or five days as I drove 30 miles one way....
I am also thinking in 2000 or 2001 my place gotten as cold as -58 and in 2004 it registered as cold as -57 , but no -60 that I witnessed...... although Plack Rd. and Chena Flood Control areas nearby have witnessed beyond -60 on their thermometers of people I know that live along there.
The real bummer was new years eve 1999/2000 when the temp at my place was -51..nobody partied and they cancelled the local community fireworks show for the next 13 days til it warmed up.
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