(Redirected from Interior of Alaska)
Fall in Interior Alaska
The 'Alaska Interior' covers most of that
U.S. state's territory. It is largely wild and undeveloped.
Mountains include
Mount McKinley (Denali) in the
Alaska Range and the
Wrangell Mountains.
The largest city in the interior is
Fairbanks,
Alaska's second-largest city, in the
Tanana Valley. Other towns include
North Pole, just south of Fairbanks,
Eagle,
Tok,
Talkeetna,
Glennallen,
Delta Junction,
Nenana,
Anderson,
Healy and
Cantwell.
Climate
Interior Alaska experiences seasonal temperature extremes. Winter temperatures in Fairbanks average −24 °C (−12 °F) and summer temperatures average +17 °C (+62 °F). Temperatures there have been recorded as low as −63 °C (−82 °F) in mid-winter, and as high as +38 °C (+101 °F) in summer.
The average annual precipitation in Fairbanks is 28.7 cm (11.3 inches). Most of this comes in the form of snow during the winter. Most storms in the interior of Alaska originate in the
Gulf of Alaska, south of Alaska.
On clear winter nights, the
aurora borealis can often be seen dancing in the sky. Like all subarctic regions, the months from May to July in the summer have no night, only a twilight during the night hours. The months of November to January have little daylight. Fairbanks receives an average 21 hours of daylight between
May 10 and
August 2 each summer, and an average of less than four hours of daylight between
November 18 and
January 24 each winter.
The interior of Alaska is largely underlined by discontinuous
permafrost, which grades to continuous permafrost as the
Arctic Circle is approached.