Outdoors in Alaska

Alaska has more outdoors than any other state with 586,412 sqare miles and more coastline that the other states combined. Its fishing, hunting, hiking, boating, skiing and other pursuits can be hard to match. Keep up with the latest news.

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Almost balmy January for Anchorage

January weather in Anchorage proved — well, pretty normal.

And while it may not have felt that way, the first month of the year was a little warmer than usual. The average high temperature of 23.1 degrees was about a degree warmer than normal, according to the National Weather Service. But the average low of 12.5 degrees was a balmy 3.2 degrees warmer than typical.

There was a yawning 57-degree gap between the warmest temperature of the month, 45 degrees, and the coldest, minus-12. Neither was close to the records of 56 degrees (1934) and minus-35 (1947).

Snowfall totaled 7.3 inches — far below the 1949 record of 36.1 inches in January, and a bit below the average of 9 inches.

But nearly half the month — 15 days — saw clear or partly cloudy skies.

Up north, Fairbanks is suffering through another snow-starved year — though not quite as bad as last year, the third-lowest snowfall on record.

Fairbanks has seen just 26.8 inches of snow all winter — well shy of Anchorage’s 43 inches, and only slightly more than last year’s 20.7 inches through the end of January.

— Mike Campbell

© Copyright 2011, The Anchorage Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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