Fairbanks airport during snow operations. Image via Wikimapia.
Alaska public media reported on a cold air incursion that covered the entire state of Alaska from early to mid-May, prolonging winter weather conditions for the entire state. In the article they cite a climate specialist, Rick Thoman, from the international Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks:
Cold air from above the North Slope brought another round of wintery weather to Western Alaska, the Eastern Aleutians, Kodiak Island and into Southcentral Alaska as well, according to Thoman.
“That was basically a blob of cold air that came down from the high Arctic from north of the North Slope, and it moved southwest through the Bering Strait down through the eastern Bering Sea, and is now actually moving into the western Gulf of Alaska,” he said.
For example, the article goes on to say,
Late in the evening on May 8, the Anchorage airport got about an inch of snow. Thoman said it’s the third highest snowfall on record for this late in the season.
“There’s only been two other occurrences since the mid-1950s when there’s been more snow than that, May 8 or later,” he said.