Wrangell-St. Elias Weather

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is near the coast, but high mountains and icefields act as barriers to the moderate maritime climate. The result is that with the exception of the coastal Yakutat area, the park has an interior continental climate. This means long and very cold winters and short, relatively warm and dry summers. With all of that said, the park is more like an empire than a national park, by far the largest of the national parks at over 13,000,000 acres. "Normal" weather conditions anywhere in Alaska are difficult to describe. The readings below are for the town of McCarthy, which is actually within the park borders, and are as good an indication as anywhere else of what is "normal".