Sure It's Cold, But How About Alaska? Try -55

Sure we have an historic December cold outbreak headed towards the eastern U.S., with RealFeel temperatures in the -20s. But how about Alaska, it's supposed to be cold up there right? Well, not this cold. Fort Yukon reported a "high" of -46 F yesterday with a low of -53.* Here's a map of the coldest temperatures this month (most of which were this week):

We don't have normals for that station, but nearby Bettles Field, AK, where it normally barely gets above zero this time of year, was -29/-46 today, a full 30 degrees below average normal daily temperature (that's not something you see often anywhere).

Are records being broken? Hard to say. Due to low population, the only station that maintains them in interior Alaska is Fairbanks, whose "warmer" readings of the -20s this week don't approach record criteria, most of which were set in 1935 when readings hit the -50s.

NOTE: If you look on the right hand side of the map above, we have Fort Simpson of the Northwest Territories hitting -60 last week but only -31 last night. We have no normals or records for that station, but looking at the actual data, I think it's probably bogus - there was a very suspicious dew point drop around that time and several missing observations. A more reliable reading was probably the -35, which is echoed by another station in town. UPDATE: A minimum reading of only -31 F for December is confirmed by Environment Canada (thanks Brett).

*The MESOWEST link reports -52 but our climatological records indicate that Fort Yukon fell one degree lower in-between observations. The NWS forecast says they could see -55 tonight, but the cold spell (which doesn't even count as a "snap") isn't expected to last.