As Lower 48 Prepares To Sink Into Arctic Icebox, Alaska Experiences Record Warmth And Storminess.

Destructive winds amid record high temperatures
blew this pedestrian walkway onto a highway
Sunday in Seward, Alaska. 

As cold weather in  much of the United States gets ready to turn truly Arctic and icy, Alaska is having a strangely warm, stormy time of it.  

The most extreme weather hit Anchorage and environs Sunday, with a windstorm so fierce that some houses lost their roofs, caused a pedestrian bridge to partly collapse, and toppled scores of trees and power lines. 

A landslide also blocked a road in Seward, but that was cleaned up within a day without causing injuries. 

Winds gusted to 132 mph at a mountain location south of Anchorage, the Associated Press reports. Just north of Anchorage, a 107 mph gust was reported in Arctic Valley. Within Anchorage itself, winds reached 75 mph. 

Some power outages around Anchorage were expected to last four days, at least through today, Wednesday. 

The extreme northern tip of Alaska experienced their own weird, warm storm. Utqiagvic, formerly Barrow is usually dark, dry and incredibly frigid this time of year. Normal highs are around minus 5 with the low around 16 below.

Instead, it's been incredibly warm for them. Also windy. Plus, on Tuesday, the had a rarity. Utqiagvic had a touch of freezing drizzle, which is practically unheard of there, especially in January. The high temperature reached 25 degrees, which doesn't seem impressive, but it fell just short of a record high. 

On Monday, it snowed in Utquigvic, and if you melted it down, it amounted to 0.29 inches of rain. Again, that doesn't sound like much, but for them, it was a record wet or snowy day. The high temperature was 24, again just short of a  record high. Oh, and the wind gusted to 60 mph. 

So quite a day for them. 

RECORD HIGHS

Fairbanks, Alaska is usually a bitter icebox this time of year, with a normal high of near 0 and a low around 18 below. 

But on Sunday, the temperature soared to a record high of 47 degrees, beating the old record high by eight degrees. On Monday, Fairbanks set another record high of 42,  It's now turning a little colder in Fairbanks, but not nearly as cold as it usually is this time of year. 

After getting a little below zero Thursday, daytime highs are forecast to be in the teens and 20s for at least a week, with overnight lows above zero. That'll be warmer than it will be around here in Vermont. 

Other record highs on Sunday up in Alaska included 44 degrees in McGrath, which exceeded the old record by a big eight degrees. Normally frigid Kotzebue got a little above freezing for a record high of 33, beating the old record of just 30. 

WHY ALASKA BAKES, LOWER 48 FREEZES

A huge northward bulge in the jet stream is allowing warm Pacific air to flood into Alaska, so they're not having the January they're used to having. 

This is one big, big northward bulge, so you're going to have a big, big corresponding dip in the jet stream to the east. That big dip is taking frigid air from the North Pole and is slamming it southward through central Canada.

That Arctic air will cross the border into the northern Plains later Friday and then quickly engulf virtually all of the Lower 48 from the Rockies to the East Coast by Saturday night. 

Low temperatures are expected to reach the 20s to near 30 below zero across a big swath of the northern United States from Idaho to Michigan, Parts or all of 40 states will probably get below zero.

The frigid temperatures are forecast to moderate, but not entirely go away, within about a week from when they start 

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Videos:

News report on the wind in Anchorage. Click on this link to view or if you see image below, click on that

More wind damage around Anchorage: Click on this link to view, or if again, if you see image below, click on that. 

Security footage of a pedestrian bridge collapsing due to high wind in Seward, Alaska. Once again click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.