Haines set a daily temperature record for June 19 on Monday, reaching 81 degrees at the airport as meteorologists issued a special weather advisory about potential flooding in local rivers.
“We’re at the top of the banks there near Klukwan,” Juneau-based NOAA hydrologist Aaron Jacobs said in an interview Wednesday. “But right now there’s not too much to worry about.”
Temperatures climbed into the 60s at higher elevations, too. A weather station on Flower Mountain, about 20 miles up the Chilkat Valley, showed 3.6 inches of liquid equivalent snowpack. Normally, the snow at that elevation has already melted by the solstice, Jacobs said.
“A lot of these river systems also have glaciers associated with it, so when we get these warm stretches we see a lot of melting,” Jacobs said. “Once we lose those lower temperatures, the rivers will slowly go back down.”
Temperatures were even higher farther up the valley and hit 84 degrees on Monday at the Chilkat River bridge at 20 Mile. But that’s nowhere near the 90 degrees that Haines saw on June 20, 1991.
Temperatures are expected to moderate over the next week, with rain possible by week’s end.