In Fairbanks, the cold snap of December 1961 is still the gold standard for extreme conditions.
The flip side of that December to remember is 2011, at least the 23 days that have occurred so far.
These may not have seemed unusual to recent arrivals, but the average temperatures at the airport this month have been running 16.5 degree above normal.
For the first three-quarters of the month, this is the warmest December in Fairbanks history, tied with 1986.
But the forecast for the weekend says the tropical weather should be gone by today.
“A much colder air mass will be moving into the Interior this weekend and will remain entrenched across the area through next week,” the National Weather Service said Friday.
The high temperature by Christmas Day is expected to be in the 15 below to 25 below range, dropping to 35 below that night.
The daily highs early next week are expected to be about 25 below, which means the December 1961 records are safe. The colder temperatures should lower the overall monthly average so that this will not be one of the top five warmest Decembers on record, the weather service predicted.
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TROOPERS ASSIST: Trooper Lucas Altepeter, Criminal Justice Tech Diane Lindner and Sgt. Brian Wassmann dropped by West Valley High School this week with good tidings.
They brought boxes full of gifts for teenagers from families that don’t have much in the way of material goods. Some of the kids live at the homeless shelter, with foster families or in a host of circumstances that are less than ideal.
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CHRISTMAS BROADCAST: A 2010 recording by Mali Music and the “Together We Stand” community choir at Hering Auditorium is to be included on the Bobby Jones Gospel program Christmas Day on BET between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. The song is “Make Me New,” written by Mali Music.
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LOCAL AUTHORITY: When the news about the death of the North Korean dictator broke last week, people all around the world who looked for more details on the history of that nation turned to an important book written by a man who now works in Fairbanks.
Brad Martin, who is serving this year as the C.W. Snedden Chair in journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is the author of “Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.” He has covered North Korea for 30 years.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has said Martin’s book is perhaps the best written on North Korea. I’ll have more on Martin’s work next week.
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ON THE MOUNTAIN: Lonnie Dupre, a 50-year-old polar explorer and adventurer, is on his way up Denali, hoping to make it to the summit sometime next month.
Dupre, who first attempted the climb in January 2011, flew to the base camp from Talkeetna at about 1 p.m. Thursday and has started up the Kahlitna Glacier, said spokesman Steve Plummer.
“The weather looks good. The winds are stable and will remain that way, hopefully, due to a high pressure moving in. He hopes to make it up the Kahiltna Glacier within the next couple days, but will be slow going due to heavy snow fall which covers crevasses. He’ll have to probe for crevasses and take extra caution due to that. We’ll be receiving one to two GPS coordinates from Lonnie as he travels to his next base camp,” Plummer said.
Early this year Dupre spent more than three weeks on the mountain, including one week in which he was pinned in a snow trench at 17,200 feet while winds of up to 100 mph prevented him from making a final push for the 20- to 320-foot summit.
Dupre has traveled more than 15,000 miles in polar regions by ski, dog team and kayak in the past 23 years, he says on his website.
He is pulling a 6-foot sled and has a backpack. The combined weight of his gear is 150 pounds. He is attached to the sled with a 14-foot lightweight aluminum ladder he will use to help span crevasses.
His handmade wooden birch skis are 7-feet long 5-inches wide. He intends to use those until he gets to higher elevations. He plans to stash his ladder and sled at the 14,000-foot level.
Dupre plans on eating about 5,000 calories a day and except for soups and drinks, his food does not require cooking.
He plans to camp in snow caves, which are warmer and more comfortable than tents and mark his way with 250 bamboo wands.
There have been nine expeditions with 16 people who reached the top of the mountain during the winter. The only successful January climb was by a team of three Russians. There have been six deaths on the winter climbs.
Dermot Cole can be reached at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.
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