Quarterly Climate Outlook

While wildfires burned across Siberia, Alaska and the Canadian North experienced very little wildfire activity. Wildfires in Yukon and Northwest Territories burned a combined 32,600 hectares , their lowest seasonal total since 1988. Alaska had the lowest area burned since 2002.

Spring is typically the driest season of the year over most of mainland Alaska, but this year precipitation was unusually high, thanks to a wetter than normal March and April

Overall, the winter period, December 2019 to February 2020, was colder than normal in almost all of Alaska and most of central and northern YT and NT.

Autumn 2019 began with drought or abnormal dryness in southern Alaska and ended with rain. However, overall dry conditions have been in place for a couple years, and ecosystem services (e.g. fish flows) sensitive to long term precipitation will require more rain and higher elevation snows to return to normal. Read about the Sept-Nov season and see what early 2020 has in store.