A spate of unusually warm, rainy and snowless weather in February kept Alaska meteorologists busy updating record books. And in Nome, a rare "thundersnow" event capped off an already unorthodox month of winter conditions.
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport measured only 1.1 inches of snow for the month -- making it Anchorage's fifth-least-snowy February since recordkeeping began in 1952, according to a statement from the National Weather Service. Only two days -- Feb. 12 and Feb. 28 -- saw measurable snowfall. (Rain did make up much of the difference, though; total precipitation of 0.72 inches was "precisely the normal for February," the weather service wrote.)
Anchorage has seen a total of just 20.5 inches of snow for the season. During a typical winter, Anchorage usually receives 60.3 inches by the end of February. Only one other season has ever experienced less snow by the end of February -- the winter of 1985-1986, which only saw 19.6 inches.
The record for the least amount of snowfall for an entire season was set in the winter of 1957-1958, when Anchorage received just 30.4 inches.
Could Anchorage beat that record this year? A weather service meteorologist says "we have a shot."
"It is possible, if we don't get a decent amount of snow," forecaster William Ludwig said. "The average snowfall for March is 9.9 inches of snow, if we get that we will be close. But it's expected to be warmer than average."
By April, he said, the snow season should be tailing off.
With an average temperature of 25 degrees, this February was the 15th-warmest on record for Anchorage, but the city broke two daily temperature records on Feb. 17 and Feb. 22, with temperatures of 44 and 47 degrees, respectively.
Fairbanks had an unusual month, too, though it didn't set any daily temperature or precipitation records.
February began normally -- in a spell of intense cold; on Feb. 7, the temperature dropped to 43 degrees below zero. But by the end of the month the average temperature in Fairbanks was 11.6 degrees -- 1.6 degrees warmer than the average. And on Feb. 16, the Interior city warmed to in monthly high of 37 degrees.
Typically, the weather service said, there are 11 days during the cold season the temperature drops below minus-40 degrees. So far there have only been seven such days. And forecasters are expecting March temperatures to climb as "sun angle and length of daylight increases," it said.
By the end of March, the weather service said they expect temperatures in the low 30s as daylight lengthens to 13 and a half hours.
In Nome, record-breaking temperatures there were accompanied by a rare phenomenon -- a thunderstorm in the middle of a blizzard -- also known as "thundersnow."
In a public statement, the weather service wrote, there were two flashes of lightning and thunder, about three minutes apart, accompanied by heavy snow on Feb. 23.
A Nome meteorologist told the Nome Nugget that the thundersnow was a "lifetime event."
The agency said thunderstorms are "rare in Nome in a given year in the summer ... much less in the middle of winter."
Thundersnow made the news elsewhere in the U.S. last month, as a Weather Channel meteorologist was unable to hide his excitement at capturing the rare conditions on camera.
The average temperature last month for Nome was 15.7 degrees -- 8.3 degrees above normal. This winter is currently the eighth-warmest on record.
The warm trend is continuing so far into March: Two Alaska communities have already broken daily high temperatures just three days into the month. On Sunday, Haines in Southeast Alaska beat its previous record when it reached 48 degrees. The old record was set in 2010 at 43 degrees. Monday, the Southwest Alaska community of Bethel beat a 12-year record by 1 degree when the temperature reached 42 degrees.