City #7: Fairbanks, AK (PAFA)

We are done forecasting for Atlanta and now focus our attention outside of the Continental United States (CONUS) for the first time since 2011! The second forecast city for the Spring semester and the seventh forecast city this year is Fairbanks, AK (PAFA). We will be forecasting for the 24-h period of 06-06 UTC (9 PM - 9 PM AKST) from 10 February - 20 February. Two things to note here is that the airport code begins with a "P" not a "K" because it is located near the Pacific Ocean and Alaska has its own time zone and is 4 hours behind us.

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Fairbanks, Alaska is found in central Alaska in the Tanana Valley. It is surrounded by various mountain ranges as you can see in the image to the right and is just 190 km from the Arctic Circle. It's well removed from The Deadliest Catch territory but perhaps it's near where one could strike it rich with some gold mining! That's enough publicity for The Discovery Channel; time to stalk the airport!

PAFA is Fairbanks International Airport and is located to the west of the city center along the Tanana River. PAFA's WMO ID is 70261. The closest topography is the Alaska Range to the south and the White Mountains to the Northeast . Be sure to check in with the local NWS WFO which is the Fairbanks, AK office. They are sort of their own little entity up there, with three Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) in Alaska (Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage) with a NWS region all to themselves-- Alaska Region Headquarters. Some of their website displays are a little bit different than what we are used to here within the Eastern Region of the NWS but they're chock full of information if you find their forecast discussion to be a bit on the short side.


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Forecasting for Alaska can be a bit tricky because it is outside of the CONUS and therefore experiencing a slightly different pattern, being just upstream. It may help to look at Northern Hemispheric analysis and forecast products to be able to get a sense of the more large-scale synoptic setup. Some Alaska-specific links are as follows:

• NCEP's Northern Hemispheric loop from GFS  
• NCEP's Ensemble Mean & Spread of GEFS (GFS Ensemble)
• NCEP/CMC's North American Ensemble Forecasting System (NAEFs, Joint CMC-GFS Ensemble)
• NCEP's Alaska-only Hi-res NAM
• NCEP's Alaska-only NMM-Core WRF
• NCEP's Alaska-only ARW-Core WRF

The CPC  8-10 day outlook for temperatures and precipitation is looking to be below normal for both temperatures and precipitation. "Normal" temperatures for the month of February are 10F/-12F so we'll see how many negative numbers we have to input! Just looking at one deterministic model shows that where a ridge had been prevalent over AK, now a trough digs down during our first week of forecasting.

Tips/Comments for Forecasting in General:

• Check out the current weather first via satellite (for Alaska option or click here for NH composite), radar (can't see much beyond Fairbanks), surface observations (AK-only), METAR, etc. You have to understand the present before you can look to the future. 
• Get a feel for general pattern from NAM, GFS, etc. (available from the Alaska-specific links above). Identify the general pattern of low and high surface pressure systems and their progression, temperature advection at 850 mb, moisture at 700 mb, vorticity at 500 mb and the general jet structure at 300 mb. Make sure you are focusing your attention on Fairbanks.
• Look at forecast model soundings for the period for PAFA (select NAM-AK or GFS-NH).
• How are the models evolving in time? Check out d(model)/dt plots like this one that focuses on the GFS.
• Ensembles are your friend. See the Alaska-specific links above for links to the NAEFS and GEFS..
• Compare your idea for values with MOS (model output statistics). Keep in mind these are instantaneous output values and you can always have values above/below that between output times.
• Read the Fairbanks, AK WFO forecast discussion for info on PAFA. These are the experts for that location, after all!
• Other universities have great WxChallenge-specific pages:
• http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~wxchallenge/
• http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/ams/wxchallenge/
• http://schumacher.atmos.colostate.edu/weather/model_compare_wxc.php

Tips/Comments for Forecasting for High/Low temperature (Fahrenheit):

• Recall such basics as nighttime radiative cooling and daytime solar radiative heating, both of which are affected by cloud cover, fog and snowcover. Should there be snowcover then temperatures can potentially be a bit colder due to snow's reflective properties and low heat capacity. There will likely be snowcover and an Arctic cold surge during our time forecasting for PAFA so be prepared!
• Frontal passages can affect your temperature forecast. Pay attention to the forecast timing of such frontal passages.
• Given quiet synoptic players, the evening dew point can act as a rough guess for the nighttime low (some forecasters use this as a first guess when they think the model output statistics (MOS) is bonkers).  

Tips/Comments for Forecasting Wind Speed (knots):

• NWS outputs wind speed in mph so if you are comparing your forecast value to theirs keep that in mind. Otherwise the models output wind speed (WSP) in knots.
• Look through METAR or surface obs for wind direction and temperature changes. 

Tips/Comments for Forecasting Precipitation (inches):

• Take a look at some higher-resolution models (found at the Alaska-specific links above).
• What does the WPC show? They only have Alaska forecast outlooks for the medium range (Day 4-7).
• Take a look at some GFS model-derived standardized anomalies of precipitable water (PWAT, for PAFA) to get a handle on any significant movement of the forecast of dry air or very moist air.
• Most products you will be looking at will output the QPF in inches already so no conversion is necessary. Recall that we are forecasting for the liquid precipitation so if the forecast calls for snow, make sure you aren't forecasting 4 inches-- use the liquid equivalent.

Be sure to check out a previous post found here for a long list of great resources that you should check out! Most of them are also found on Dr. Colle's Coastal Meteorology and Atmospheric Prediction (COMAP) group's website. Please feel free to comment below with any cool sites or tools that you've discovered from your experience!

Lasso up some sled dogs and get excited for forecasting for Fairbanks, AK! Or perhaps you'll want to paint a happy little cloud near a happy little tree like the late Bob Ross did after being inspired from living there. (If you're too young to know who Bob Ross is then I quit.) It should be absolutely frigid during the second and third week of February which should making for really cool forecasts (pun intended)! If you have any questions or comments feel free to comment on this post, email me or stop by my office (CH 121). Best of luck forecasting for PAFA and Go Team SBU!!!

Also, have some fun and submit your choice for the 10th forecast city by 14 February! I totally submitted "KISP", "KBOS" and "KNYC" because I'm wicked into our region.