Weather the past several weeks over Interior Alaska has been dominated by surface high pressure, with clear skies much of the time. Also, during the past couple weeks winds have not been able to break through the inversion. As a result, temperatures have remained strong elevationally stratified. Here is a plot of daytime (7am-7pm) daily high temperatures (based on hourly data) since Thanksgiving Day at eight weather stations in the greater Fairbanks area. The stations are:
WODA2=Woodsmoke PWS (near North Pole), elevation 500' MSL
GCSA2=Goldstream Creek CWOP elevation 577' MSL
PAFA= Fairbanks Airport, elevation 435' MSL
FAOA2=UAF West Ridge, elevation 597' MSL
CLGA2=College Hills PWS (near the top of Baline Hill) elevation 751' MSL
NHPA2=Nenana Hills RWIS (Parks Highway between Fairbanks and Nenana), elevation 1398' MSL
KERA2= Keystone Ridge, elevation 1600' MSL
WICA2=Wickersham Dome, elevation 2230' MSL
The comparative gap in the middle is a function of the narrow elevational band that is intermediate between "valley" and "hill" and there happens to be few weather stations in that band (there is at least one other PWS, that is in the intermediate band at 1100' MSL, CW6333, but it has reported only a few days in the past two weeks). That is too bad because many of the residences in the "hills" are only a few hundred feet above the valley floor.
