Annie Feidt, Alaska’s Energy Desk

Less than ten years after oil started flowing, Alaska’s economy cratered. The recession was quick and deep. Ten banks failed, real estate values plummeted and tens of thousands of people fled the state. It was Alaska’s great recession, 20 years before the rest of the country went through almost the same thing.

In Alaska, we don’t pay income tax. We don’t pay state sales tax. But once a year every man, woman and child gets a cut of the state’s oil wealth. There are plenty of other oil states in the world, but Alaska is the only one that treats residents like shareholders and sends them dividend checks every year.

Back in 1970 on July 19, it snowed 9.7 inches at the Summit weather station just south of Cantwell on the Parks Highway.

Residents of Utqiagvik have experienced above normal temperatures for the last 17 months. But a cooler than normal June will end that streak.

This year’s summer solstice happens at 8:24 pm Tuesday in Alaska.

There has only been one 100 degree reading in Alaska, at Fort Yukon in 1915. That ties Hawaii for their warmest temperature on record.