A series of record-breaking storms that hit the Northwest Arctic and Bering Straits region in early March brought heavy snowfall and high winds up to 55 mph. The City of Kotzebue issued a disaster declaration after the storm's impact threatened emergency services and knocked out vital infrastructure. According to Alaska-based climatologists, these heavy mid-to-late winter storms might become more common and signify a climatic shift for the region.
The blizzard that hit Kotzebue between March 4-6 was one of the larger storm events in recent years. The National Weather Service recorded the highest one and three-day precipitation amounts for the month of March from the Kotzebue Airport at 1.27 inches. Kotzebue’s average monthly precipitation for March is 0.52 inches; essentially two months worth of spring precipitation fell in just three days.
“It's certainly exceptional,” said Brian Brettschneider, a physical scientist with the National Weather Service based in Anchorage.
Brettschneider said the moisture level was “extraordinary” but there's a caveat - there are many metrics for how to calculate the intensity of storms including wind speed, moisture level, low pressure systems and storm tracks. Brettschneider said while the precipitation of the early March storms was record-breaking, measuring snow amounts on the tundra is notoriously difficult.
“I mean, you could have a five foot snowdrift one day, and the next day, it's been blown away. How do you measure that?” Brettschneider said.
Rick Thoman is a climate specialist for the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He said while the Northwest Arctic’s recent storms were unprecedented, as a whole Kotzebue has not had a particularly stormy winter. What is more fascinating, he believes, could be the changing seasonality of storms.
“Large parts of Alaska, including the Northwest Arctic are seeing more snow in the midwinter than there used to be that's mostly counterbalancing a decline in autumn snowfall,” Thoman said.
According to Thoman, a team at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks is actively researching the trend, what he called “cutting edge work.”
Both Thoman and Brettsneider emphasize that warming temperatures causing less sea ice in the Bering Sea could bring about more intense storms, like the recent snow storms or the devastating Typhoon Murbok which hit Western Alaska in September.
In general, Alaska is experiencing more intense storms - from the Arctic to Southeast. Thoman cited the fatal 2020 landslides in Haines and record snow in Anchorage in December. Additionally, Kotzebue, Nome and Utqiaġvik have all set their all-time, one day precipitation records in the last three years.
Brettsneider said that higher latitude areas like the Arctic will continue to experience more precipitation due to warming temperature from polar amplification, also known as the albedo effect. Polar amplification means that as more snow and ice melts, more heat is absorbed into the surface, creating a positive feedback loop.
“Without snow on the ground, the highlighted areas are just absorbing solar energy, when in the past, much of that time, it was reflecting solar energy away,” Brettsneider said. “The same is true of sea ice — the Bering Sea used to have a lot more ice in it, in April and May, and even into June.”
A 2022 study reports the Arctic as a whole has warmed at a rate four times higher than the rest of the planet over the last forty years.
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