A bitter Monday morning chill across Southcentral Alaska should persist for at least another day, forecasters say, and changing conditions could bring higher temperatures later in the week.
As of 7:30 a.m. Monday, the National Weather Service's Anchorage office listed a temperature of 3 degrees at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Much of the Mat-Su was below zero, with Palmer at minus 4, Wasilla at minus 11 and Talkeetna at minus 13.
The Kenai Peninsula and points south hosted Southcentral's warmest spots, including a relatively balmy 13 degrees in Seward, with 18 recorded in Homer and 21 in Kodiak.
Rebecca Duell, a forecaster at the Weather Service's office in Anchorage, said an average low for Sunday night in Anchorage was 16 degrees, but temperatures at the airport fell to 2 below -- just 3 degrees above the record low recorded for the date but still warmer than other parts of town.
"South Anchorage had a bit of wind, and they didn't get as cold as East Anchorage," Duell said.
Across the region, Duell said, Southcentral's cold was the result of three factors: cold air, calm winds and clear skies.
"Basically, what we have is this really cold Arctic air mass over us and that's really what's driving it," Duell said. "We've had all three of those factors line up over a lot of those areas."
Most areas, including the Mat-Su region, reported minimal winds and only patchy clouds over the weekend -- both factors that helped send the mercury down.
"One of the reasons we've been so cold recently is that we've been fairly calm, and you notice a temperature swing in the areas that haven't seen much wind -- they get much, much colder," Duell said. "Most of the areas are clear, and areas like the Susitna Valley that were clear overnight get really, really cold."
According to the NWS forecast for the week, skies should be clear through Tuesday, with daytime high temperatures hovering between 5 and 15 degrees before rising amid Wednesday clouds, with a chance of snow, to the 20-degree belt by Thursday and Friday.
Nighttime lows over the same period will include dips below zero -- including 10 to 15 below in East Anchorage on Tuesday.
Duell said the uptick in the forecast's temperatures reflects a change in air masses expected later this week, as well as increases in local cloud cover.
"Definitely more typical temperatures for this time of year, so it won't be quite up to average by the end," Duell said. "(By the) middle to the end of the week, we'll start getting back to that normal temperature range there."
In the Interior, Fairbanks experienced an overnight low Sunday of 22 degrees below zero. According to the Fairbanks NWS office's forecast, residents of the Golden Heart City can expect daytime highs up to zero degrees this week, with evening lows as deep as 25 degrees below on Tuesday and Friday.