Temperatures this summer were higher than average

By Rick Thoman
Alaska Climate Specialist
Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness
International Arctic Research Center/University of Alaska Fairbanks

All things considered, summer 2025 was a pretty reasonable summer in Nome climate-wise, especially after the previous couple of years.
Temperatures averaged slightly above normal each of the three months, the overall this summer had the highest average temperature since summer 2020. Sunny and mild days were more frequent than usual between mid-June and early August.
At the Nome airport, the temperature reached 70°F or higher on 11 days, the most since the summer of 2007.
Dexter reported 16 days that warm and Pilgrim Hot Springs 22 days at 70°F or higher.
This week's Climate Watch graphic shows the total number of days each summer with high temperatures of 70°F or higher at the Nome airport since 1946 (when climate observations moved from downtown to Marks Field).
Until the early 1970s Nome usually had only a few days each summer in the 70s or 80s. Since then, the average number of warm days has more than doubled. So far, in the 21st century, there have been only three summers (2001, 2018 and 2023) that had fewer warm days than were typical in the mid-20th century.
Rainfall this summer was well above normal, especially in August. In total, 10.14 inches of rain was more than one and half times normal. However, that was more the result of a few storms that brought heavy rain, as the number of days with rain was only slightly above normal.
Out in the ocean, though the summer overall did not feature overly warm waters, the sunny and hot weather in late July and early August briefly pushed Norton Sound surface up into the lower 60s, which by both direct measurements and satellite estimates were even higher than highest sea surface temperatures offshore of Nome we saw during summer 2019.