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Bethel Rainfall In July Near Record Highs

Andrew West

Some people in Bethel have called this the dreariest, wettest summer of their lives, and they're right. Last month was the wettest July in Bethel in over 90 years, with 4.22 inches of rainfall. When it hasn’t been raining this summer, the sky has still often been grey. Bethel also experienced the cloudiest June and July in 60 years.

Many subsistence fishermen have called into salmon management meetings reporting the difficulty in drying salmon in this year's conditions.

The wet, cloudy weather has spanned most of Western and Northern Alaska. Kotzebue broke a record in July for the highest precipitation ever in a single month.

Rick Thoman is an Alaska climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center. Thoman said that that most of the time, summer weather in Western Alaska is a mix of sunny and stormy. 

“A storm comes through and then high pressure builds in, and it clears out and it gets nice. There's been much less of that this summer than we might expect. Rather, we've been in this very stagnant pattern," Thoman said. "Sometimes the atmosphere gets into these patterns where the jet stream flow is relatively stable for long periods of time and doesn't change much. Other times, it's much more changeable. That one, probably, we just chalk up to random variability.”

But some scientists don’t believe stagnant weather patterns are completely random. Research suggests that these stalled weather systems with long-lasting periods of rain or heat are happening more often lately, and some scientists say that it’s due to climate change. They say that climate change is slowing down the jet stream, which keeps the same weather system in place for longer. On the other hand, Thoman said that this research is just emerging and climate scientists have not yet come to a consensus on this issue.

While rainfall in Bethel has neared record highs, Thoman said that temperatures this summer have been moderate, despite some locals’ perceptions that it is a cold summer.

“It's been cool by recent standards, but by historical standards it's not. It's a very average summer, if you will,” Thoman said.

This summer’s temperatures have been a shift from the last six years that have all been above average temperatures. 2019 was the second hottest summer in Bethel on record.

Thoman said that according to the most recent Climate Prediction Center outlook, the weather around Bethel will stay wet and cool throughout August.

 

Greg Kim was a news reporter for KYUK from 2019-2022.