According to the National Weather Service Alaska, 2014 surpassed 1926, which had previously been the warmest year on record for Alaska since accurate recording began. Climate data for Alaska goes back to 1918.

To determine the warmest year on record, the climatic data center pulls temperature data from each of its monitoring locations in the state and computes the statewide departure from the longterm average. The climatic data center uses the time period between 1971 and 2000 as its baseline for the longterm average.

According to the National

Weather Service’s website, nearly 200 weather monitoring stations gather data from different locations in Alaska, most of which are operated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The communities of McGrath, Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel, Cold Bay, King Salmon and Homer all experienced its warmest year on record in 2014. Fairbanks experienced its fourth warmest year on record in 2014, with an average temperature of 31.2 degrees. In Anchorage — for the first time since temperature monitoring began — the temperature did not drop below zero degrees during the calendar year.

The warm year was helped by exceptionally mild temperatures statewide in January, May, November and December.

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