Despite a brief heat wave a couple weeks ago, cold temperatures have returned again to Fairbanks with a strong winter inversion. Recent CSPP NUCAPS sounding is shown below on the left, compared with the Fairbanks sounding on the right. The red line is the vertical temperature profile, and the green line is the dewpoint depression profile. […]

On Monday Jan 24th, Fairbanks received a warm air push from the south, while the western coastal sections along the Bering Sea were getting cold air from the north to northwest. The image below is the near surface temperature from NUCAPS gridded data as of 0600 UTC, January 24th 2022, which provides a general view

The DayLandCloud RGB above shows a view of low stratocumulus clouds over the Mackenzie Mountains on the border between the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada on January 13th, 2021. The rippled appearance of the clouds is the result of gravity waves generated by strong low level stability and wind above the rough terrain. You

The VIIRS SnowCloud Discriminator (VSCD) combines information from 10 different bands on VIIRS (6 during the day and 4 at night) to help distinguish clouds from snow and ice. Unlike other RGBs for snow and cloud discrimination, which only work during the day, the Snow/ Cloud Discriminator utilizes the Day/Night Band (DNB) so it works

On May 24th, the VIIRS automated fire detection software identified seven possible fire points very close together in the Canadian Yukon Territory with the 1136 UTC SNPP satellite pass, however, the circumstances of the event suggest that these were probably not fires. Below is a VIIRS i04 (3.74um) shortwave IR image zoomed in over the

Satellite Imagery and Sea Spray There were very strong northerly winds occurring in southeast Alaska today producing lots of sea spray which visible satellite imagery was able to capture. The Truecolor RGB below shows a lighter grey color over water where there is evidence of sea spray.  Greater sea spray indicated greater winds. The photo