We've had a warm winter here so far, not even below zero here at the ranch yet. And last November we didn't get above zero on many days.

Part of our warmth this early winter is due to a series of chinook winds that happen when our airflow pattern is from dead south, over the Gulf of Alaska, to dead north, over the Alaska Range. That causes clouds to dump their moisture on the south side of the Alaska Range. And then the air does a strange thing, warming as it drops over the north side.

This chinook wind makes it very warm here. We had 40s over Thanksgiving. Chinooks also produce this predictable and kind of cool cloud pattern, where there's a gap over the Alaska Range, then clouds form north here to Fairbanks.

We seem to get lots of chinooks now, but the king was in 1934. That chinook caused the only green Christmas on record in Fairbanks: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF18/1834.html

My favorite part of that article is the following. Like we need another reason to be lunatics up here.

“These warm, dry winds have sometimes adversely affected human behavior,” the editors of the textbook, Meteorology Today wrote. “During periods of chinook winds some people feel irritable and depressed and others become ill. The exact reason for this phenomenon is not clearly understood.”