Forecasters will begin issuing heat advisories for Anchorage and surrounding areas when temperatures become potentially hazardous, according to the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office, which serves Southcentral and Southwest Alaska.
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Meteorologist Aviva Braun said it’s part of an effort to provide clearer messaging, along with matching nationwide agency practices.
“All of our sister offices across the country have started issuing heat advisories, and we were actually the last one to come on board,” she said.
Forecasters will issue heat advisories when temperatures are 70 degrees or above for two or more consecutive days, depending on location. For Anchorage, that threshold is 75 degrees. Alaskans’ health starts suffering when temperatures reach 70 degrees, although some effects can take a few days to show up.
It’s relatively uncommon for the state’s largest city to hit those temperatures, Braun said.
“It does happen one to two times a year,” she said. “Since our period of record, April 1, 1952, we have hit a two-day 75-degree threshold for Anchorage, a total of 66 times, 35 of those times since 2000.”The warmest temperature ever recorded in Anchorage was 90 degrees in July 2019.
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The temperature thresholds in Alaska are much lower than what would trigger heat advisories in other parts of the country. For example, in areas of Texas and Oklahoma, temperatures have to reach at least 105 degrees.
Braun said the comparatively cooler temperatures still feel hot to many residents.
“This is a temperature that’s better suited for us, better suited for the infrastructure that we have – of not having an AC, of our homes being built to maintain and keep heat in,” she said. “We also have a sun angle that hits our body more broadly with a longer period of the day in the sunlight.”
Alaska is warming two to three times faster than the global average, according to the 2023 National Climate Assessment. The state’s first-ever heat advisory was issued last summer in Fairbanks when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees, although it wasn’t the first time the Golden Heart City had experienced toasty temperatures.
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