January saw some record high daily temperatures in Haines, but on average, the month was only the fourth warmest on record, according to National Weather Service officials in Juneau.
Meteorologist Aaron Jacobs said the month’s average temperature of 34 degrees F. compares to an average January temperature of 36.5 degrees in 1981, as recorded at the Haines airport.
January was still unseasonably warm, as the month’s normal average temperature is 23.2 degrees at the airport.
January’s high temperature was 47 degrees on Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, setting daily records for those days at the airport station. Daily records also were set Jan. 22 (46 degrees) and Jan. 26 (43 degrees).
Some January temperatures here in 1981 topped 50 degrees, weather service officials said.
January saw 4.74 inches of rain at the airport, which made it the 17th wettest on record.
At his weather station downtown, Paul Swift measured 21.1 inches of snow for the month. That’s the third lowest accumulation for the month since Swift’s weather station was established in 1998. The lowest there was 15.9 inches in 2003.
The month’s warm temperatures owed to a very strong ridge of high pressure that extended up the West Coast to the Alaska Panhandle, Jacobs said. The weather contrasted starkly with a relatively cold December that brought record snow.
“It was a big flip-flop from one weather pattern to a different pattern,” he said.
A high-pressure system that brought colder, sunny weather to Haines this week is expected to continue through the weekend, Jacobs said.