February weather will go down in the record books in stark contrast to January. Above normal warmth so far this month following January’s extreme cold is hard to pin on any one factor, but National Weather Service lead forecaster Rick Thoman in Fairbanks says the cooling of equatorial Pacific waters called La Nina likely figures into it.
Thoman says last winter was also La Nina and featured some ups and downs, including 2 late season blizzards in the interior. Thoman says atmospheric conditions affecting Alaska since the start of this month, are keeping the interior, and other parts of the state – warm.
Dan Bross is a reporter at KUAC in Fairbanks.
