After nearly a month of dry weather and high temperature, rain is expected for the rest of this week.
KSRM’s Sally Russell said although its light, the area is receiving measurable precipitation.
Russell: “We have a couple of upper level disturbances pushing down through and that will keep our rain chances on the higher side over the next couple days, however, we are not looking at really heavy amounts of rain but we are getting some measurable rain in here and we are increasing the humidity and that’s some good news as well. Scattered showers mainly early tonight then we’re left with clouds and 45. Showers with us again Thursday a high back into the middle 50’s, rain with us on Thursday night, about a 50/50 chance of rain on Friday, a high into the upper 50’s and a chance of rain Saturday and again on Sunday.”
Earlier in May Regional Climate Services Manager Rick Thoman explained that sea surface temperatures in tropical areas have risen already this year.
Thoman: “They’re already warming and we expect them to get up to that significantly above normal level this summer. And why is that important? Because that influences where thunder storms form in the Equatorial Pacific and then those big giant equatorial tropical thunder storms push lots of moisture and then that gets dispersed to the higher latitudes that way, so that in a nutshell is why what happens over the tropical Pacific can matter to Alaska.”
He said that based on the similar weather trends in 13 Alaskan summers of El Nino over the past 60 years, this summer is shaping up to be very dry one.