Feeling chilly? On this day in Alaska history, it got to -62

It’s 11 degrees Fahrenheit in Fairbanks this morning — about average for this time of year. But on Nov. 28, 1953, the region around Fairbanks set a record. At Ladd Air Force Base (now called Fort Wainwright), just outside Fairbanks, the temperature plunged to −62 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest official temperature ever recorded in the state of Alaska at the time.

The reading was taken at nearby Eielson Air Force Base, southeast of Fairbanks, during a deep Interior cold snap that pushed the limits even by Alaska standards.

This remains one of the coldest temperatures in North American history outside the Canadian Far North. For perspective, steel becomes brittle at those extremes, vehicle engines seize solid, and exposed skin can freeze in less than a minute. In communities across the Interior, daily life slows to a crawl, not because Alaskans aren’t tough, but because nature demands respect.

In 1953, Fairbanks was a frontier military town, still years away from statehood and decades before pipeline-era growth. Ladd AFB served as a key Cold War site just 125 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Extreme winter temperatures were part of the routine, but −62°F was exceptional, even by the standards of those stationed there.

Old-timers recall that kind of cold: the crunch of ice crystals under boots, the fog that hovered at ground level, and the eerie silence that comes when even the wind gives up. Aviation crews battled frozen hydraulic lines. Vehicles were kept running around the clock. Water systems were tightly monitored to prevent instant freeze-ups that could cripple entire facilities.

The record has never been broken in Alaska. Even the legendary Jan. 23, 1971 cold snap in Prospect Creek, where the thermometer hit -80°F, does not displace the 1953 figure, because Prospect Creek’s measurement, while accepted as a US national record, was not recorded through the same standard system that governed statewide climate records. It was also not in November.

At the time, Prospect Creek was a small pipeline camp and the extreme temperature made it the coldest place in American history.

According to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, “Alaska has come close to the all-time cold record a few times. On Jan. 27, 1989, Galena registered at 70 below, McGrath 75 below, and Tanana 76 below. Weather observers Dick and Robin Hammond of Chicken, Alaska, recorded minus 72 degrees during their 8 a.m. thermometer check on Feb. 7, 2008.  Two days later, Larry and June Taylor  — also official observers for the National Weather Service — recorded the same temperature at O’Brien Creek off the Taylor Highway.”

But rarely does it get so cold in November, before the winter solstice arrives, as it did back in 1953. On this Nov. 28, we remember the day Alaska showed the world just how cold cold can get.

Photo credit: Fairbanks in winter by Robert Lype.