A spell of unseasonably warm weather in winter 2024–2025 has meant less snow for parts of the normally frozen state of Alaska.
A spell of unseasonably warm weather in winter 2024–2025 has meant less snow for parts of the normally frozen state of Alaska.
These images show the Bristol Bay Borough in southern Alaska. Notice the vast area of bare ground in the image on January 26, 2025 (right), compared to the image captured around the same time one year prior (left). They were acquired by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.
Since December 2024, temperatures across the state were 5–10 degrees Fahrenheit (3–6 degrees Celsius) above normal, according to NOAA, with isolated areas experiencing even greater anomalies. The warm temperatures caused existing snow and ice to melt and new precipitation to fall as rain. In early December, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Anchorage (northeast of this image) issued a warning of potential flooding and ice jams due to melting ice, according to news reports.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
