Alaska is witnessing its coldest air in almost two years, and some of the biting chill is forecast to plunge into the western United States in about a week's time. In Fairbanks on Tuesday morning, the temperature tanked to minus-31 degrees, ending a 624-day stretch in which it was warmer than that — the second longest on record. Tuesday afternoon, the mercury only recovered to minus-21, ending a record-long 658-day stretch with highs above minus-10. It was even colder in Bettles, Alaska, on Tuesday, where the temperature dropped to minus-41 with a bone-chilling wind chill of minus-53. Statewide, it was the first time Alaska's daily temperature index was significantly below normal in almost a year. This morning, some locations in our 49th state plummeted as low as minus-40 to minus-45 degrees. Although the weather in the Last Frontier is cold compared with the past two years, it has been much colder in the past.