Surface Climate and SnowWeather Relationships of the Kuparuk Basin
33
Figure 12. Daily mean temperatures at SAG for all five years of
record during the latter half of EC, showing warming/thawing
events (note the 0C isotherm).
The EC warming event of 1997 (Fig. 12) had both the greatest duration and
warmest temperatures of all these events in the period of record, with above-
freezing daily mean temperatures from 8 to 13 November. Figure 13a shows the
12 UTC, 8 Nov., 1997 850-mb (heavy solid) and 500-mb (light dashed) geopo-
tential height over Alaska and the North Pacific, nearly coincident with the first
above-freezing temperatures at SAG. The lower troposphere (850-mb) height
pattern was dominated by a deep extratropical low-pressure system in the Bering
Sea centered over the Alaskan PeninsulaBristol Bay region. The 850-mb
geostrophic flow over eastern Alaska at this time was nearly meridional, with a
strong WE pressure gradient producing southerly winds. The midtropospheric
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