Welcome to weather.arsc.edu

The State of Alaska covers almost 1.5 million square kilometres of land from 51^oN to 71^oN and 173^oE to 130^oW. With topography ranging from marine, to broad river valleys, to North America's highest peak, and temperatures that have ranged from -80^oF to +100^oF, the challenges of modeling and studying the weather are immense. In this large expanse of boreal forest, tundra, permafrost, glaciers, temperate rain forests and over 33,000 miles of shoreline - more than that of the entire contiguous United States - population is sparse and weather observations are in short supply. Yet, numerous activities throughout the region are dependent on accurate and timely forecasts of the extreme and highly variable weather.

With the large expanse and complicated terrain, ARSC personnel and computers are hard-pressed to balance the need for fine-resolution grids with timely solutions. Millions of cpu-hours are invested each year on a large number of research and real-time model predictions including traditional numerical weather prediction, space weather, fire smoke and air quality and volcanic ash transport. ARSC weather products and resources are utilized heavily by research and operational activities here at UAF, and throughout the private and public sectors nationally and internationally.

ARSC appreciates your interest in its weather activities and welcomes your questions and comments. We encourage you to use the links above to learn more about us, and to send us email at wxinfo@arsc.edu if we can be of help to you.