Juneau’s warm stretch continued in July, according to measurements taken by the National Weather Service. Temperatures last month at Juneau International Airport averaged 59.7 degrees, 2.8 degrees above normal for July.
Temperatures have been above normal every month in Juneau since September 2015, when they were 0.8 degrees below average. That’s the only month below normal in the past two and a half years — March 2014 averaged 2.3 degrees below normal, according to the Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
July brought the capital city its second (and likely last) 80-degree day of the year on July 18, when the thermometer reached 82 degrees — a figure that likely will stand as the warmest day of 2016. That mark tied a record first set in 1947.
Juneau averages slightly fewer than two 80-degree days per year.
When it came to rain, Juneau was about a third of an inch drier than normal. At the airport, 4.28 inches of rain was recorded, less than the 4.6 inches that falls in a normal July.
Most of that rain came at the beginning and at the end of the month. Less than a quarter of an inch of rain was recorded between July 2 and July 20.
Last year, Juneau had its wettest July on record with 10.4 inches of rain recorded at the airport.
Juneau and the rest of Alaska are enjoying the effects of a transition from El Niño warming to La Niña cooling in the Pacific Ocean.
El Niño is a periodic warming of the Pacific waters along the equator; La Niña is a periodic cooling of those waters.
El Niño typically brings warmer, wetter weather to Juneau and Southeast Alaska. La Niña typically brings cooler, drier weather.
Despite that traditional pattern, the national Climate Prediction Center forecasts a greater than normal probability for a warm, wet end to the year.
