the us state of alaska has recorded its hottest—ever december day, amid an unusual winter warm spell. temperatures soared to a record 19.4c on the island of kodiak on sunday — almost seven degrees warmer than the state's previous high. but elsewhere in alaska temperatures have been plunging to record lows. brian brettschneider is an alaska climate scientist at the national weather service in anchorage. i asked him whether he had seen anything like this in his lifetime. for the month of december, really any winter month, the warmth that was experienced recently was really shocking and unprecedented. seven degrees warmer than the previous record, that is incredibly rare? yeah, that was breaking the daily. even the monthly records which monthly records are so seldom broken and usually when they are, it is usually by very small margins. the monthly record was broken by four celsius so itjust