Warm weather?

Guest

Is the warm weather in this part of the Artic unusual? and, either way what causes it?

Hope your enjoying your weatherlicious trip Smile

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 74 Location: Barrow, AK

Leo
The warm weather that we had was not TOO unusual for the Arctic. I say that in that the temperatures that we had were not even record highs for those days. But by the same token, weather that warm is not usual either. Certainly, that many nice days in a row does not happen every year (it didn't last year, for example).
The warm weather was caused by a combination of a couple of things. First, there was a stable high pressure system over Barrow (and much of the North Slope), which stayed put for about 4 days. Second, the jet stream, which drives weather systems in a generally west to east direction, was looped up much farther north than usual. This brought warm Equatorial air up toward the poles. This same jet stream flow brought the 90-95 F weather in Bellingham that you had the other week. It just only got to 70 F in Barrow. Smile

Once this stable warm system was established, the clear skies and 24 hour sunlight tend to perpetuate that type of weather. Until Tuesday, when the weather changed and a low pressure system pushed the high pressure out and it became very foggy and cloudy.
Mrs. N-O