Utqiagvik, Alaska, formerly known as Barrow, saw its most rain in a single day, while Fairbanks was raked by high winds
Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:
The northernmost city in the United States set a single-day rainfall record on Tuesday as a sprawling storm blasted Alaska, yet another recent precipitation record in a corner of the world uniquely gripped by climate change. The storm also sent powerful winds gusting across the Alaskan interior, with widespread tree damage in Fairbanks.
Utqiagvik, a city of 5,000 formerly known as Barrow, saw 1.42 inches of rain on Tuesday, more than any other day in more than 100 years of record keeping, surpassing 1.28 inches from a rainstorm in July 1987.
At 71 degrees north latitude, the community, located on a peninsula that juts into the Arctic Ocean, is among the northernmost permanently inhabited places in the world.
The significance of the record was noted by meteorologists and climatologists in Fairbanks. “Utqiagvik has only recorded over 1.00 inch of rain two other times since records began there in 1920,” wrote the National Weather Service office in Fairbanks in a statement.
The record is especially remarkable considering Utqiagvik’s typically dry climate; its annual precipitation is just 5.39 inches.
Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center, wrote in an email that the Utqiagvik record was yet another example of intensified precipitation in the state amid a warming climate; he said another top-10 rainfall day occurred in Utqiagvik just last September.
