November was cold on Kodiak Island, but not quite record-breaking

Data from federal meteorologists suggests this past November may have been one of the coldest on record in Kodiak. Temperatures dipped anywhere from 2 to 24 degrees below average, but that unusual cold snap wasn’t record-breaking. That’s because of a technicality, according to Joe Wegman, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. 

“Unfortunately we can’t say for sure, and the reason is that the measuring equipment out there was broken for the first nine days of the month,” Wegman said.

The information they do have was collected between November 10 through the 30th. The last time it was almost that cold was in 2011, when the average daily temperature was 4 degrees warmer than it was this past November.

Wegman says an unusually strong and persistent cold air dome over much of the state was to blame for last month’s frigid temperatures. That weather has lingered into December, but Kodiak Island should see some relief over the next week.

“We’re just definitely over the next several days looking at more influxes of warmth and Pacific moisture coming into the state in general,” she said.

Weather models say another cold blast might hit the island by the end of the month.