FAIRBANKS – If you think it was cold in Fairbanks on Saturday, be thankful you weren’t in Bettles.

The small Bush village 200 miles north of Fairbanks in the foothills of the Brooks Range recorded a new record low temperature of 47 degrees below zero on Saturday, the fifth day in a row a new record low was set in the town.

“It’s been five days in a row, and it sucks,” said a woman at Bettles Lodge who didn’t want to be identified when reached by phone.

It was the sixth day in a row the temperature in Bettles was colder than 40 below.

The temperatures from Nov. 17 through Nov. 21 were minus 45, minus 46, minus 47, minus 46 and minus 47, respectively.

“It’s definitely been an unusual early season cold snap,” said Bettles weather observer Max Hanst.

“Bettles is always one of the coldest places in the state, but usually we wait until January before it starts hitting us.”

In Fairbanks, the low temperature of 34 below at Fairbanks International Airport on Saturday morning was 1 degree shy of tying the record low of 35 below set in 1904.

The high temperature at the Fairbanks airport on Saturday was 25 below, and lows were expected to dip into the 30-below range for a second straight night.

While the temperature in Fairbanks hovered mostly between 10 and 20 below all week, it dropped Friday night when clouds that had been lingering in the area moved out and cold air moved in from the Arctic, said Allura Weimer, a hydrological and meteorological technician at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.

“The clouds went away,” she said. “Thermal radiation comes off the ground, and the clouds trap it and it radiates back down to keep things warmer. When it’s clear like it was last night, we lose all our thermal radiation.”

In Bettles, it’s been clear all week, Weimer said.

“They haven’t had the clouds we have,” she said.

Bettles wasn’t the only Interior village to report 40 below temperatures Saturday.

The low temperature in Fort Yukon, Huslia and Ruby was 44 below.

The cold snap in Bettles follows what was a mild October and a late freezeup on the Koyukuk River, Hanst said.

The cold weather came on the heels of a snowstorm that dumped 24 inches of snow on the town in two days.

Still, if 47 below is the coldest it gets all winter in Bettles, Hanst said he’ll take it.

“I’ve seen it minus 72, so we’re still in the quite reasonable range actually,” said Hanst, who has lived in Bettles for 10 years and runs dog mushing tours when he’s not working for the weather service.

If nothing else, there should be plenty of ice and frozen ground to start putting in the 30-mile ice road that leads from the village to the Dalton Highway, Hanst said.

“We’re definitely going to have some river ice and ground frost to get the equipment out there now,” he said.

While low temperatures were expected to continue Saturday night with lows in Fairbanks forecasted to be 35 below in valleys, the temperature should moderate beginning today, Weimer said. The high today is forecast for zero to 10 above, and today’s low should be about 15 below. Temperatures will warm slowly into single positive digits later this week, she said.

Contact staff writer Tim Mowry at 459-7587.