Democracy Dies in Darkness

Alaska’s northernmost city posts warmest winter temperature on record

Despite total darkness, Utqiagvik hit 40 degrees Monday — its highest temperature ever observed between November and March

By
and 
December 6, 2022 at 3:42 p.m. EST
Temperature anomalies upward of nearly 40 degrees above normal for the whole day were off the charts in northern Alaska on Dec. 6. (weatherbell.com)
4 min

At the northern tip of Alaska, the city of Utqiagvik on Monday reached its warmest temperature ever observed between November and March, when the mercury shot up to 40 degrees — 36 degrees above the norm.

The record-crushing high temperature was six degrees higher than the next warmest December reading ever measured there, in more than a century of records. It marked yet another exceptional extreme event in a region that is rapidly warming because of human-caused climate change.