While the Central and Eastern Lower 48 remains gripped by winter with a low of -41F at Embarrass, Minnesota on Friday morning, it’s been ridiculously warm in SE Alaska and Northwest Canada. How warm are we talking? Try 67 degrees ABOVE in southeast Alaska yesterday! That’s a new state record high for January!

Check out the off the scale warmer than normal in Northwest North America verses well below normal over the Midwest.

https://twitter.com/NWSJuneau/status/952952552227819521

https://twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/952673897714827264

https://twitter.com/AlaskaWx/status/952694320628252672

It’s also crazy warm up into Northwest Territories and Yukon.

https://twitter.com/MurphTWN/status/952874460482359296

Meanwhile this was Friday morning in Northern Minnesota.

Time to break out the shorts up in Alaska! Wow!

Reason for the warmth? Low pressure pulling sub-tropical Pacific air north on it’s eastern side.

Interestingly this crazy warmth comes just days after Chicken, AK hit -54 and coldest temperature of the winter for the state.

https://twitter.com/Climatologist49/status/951174240132190208

While it’s way too warm in Alaska and NW Canada it’s certainly looking and feeling like January over the Eastern Lower 48 but interestingly it wasn’t this time several days ago and at this time last year.

Following the coldest open to a January on record for most of the East, a brief warm surge drove temperatures into record warm territory and they are now back in January mode. An amazing seesaw this month.

A few days ago…

 

https://twitter.com/ericfisher/status/951957408817074177

https://twitter.com/capital_climate/status/951948014544998400

https://twitter.com/JimTeskeNC9/status/951927772783566855

Now

Last January was warm too but for longer.

https://twitter.com/NWSHastings/status/825559178387283970

https://twitter.com/NY1weather/status/819666784815038465

Tags: alaska record warmth, january warmth, juneau