In early May 2025, residents of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, were acclimating to the arrival of an exceptionally long stretch of daylight.
In early May 2025, residents of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, were acclimating to the arrival of an exceptionally long stretch of daylight. In the northernmost city in the United States, the Sun won’t dip below the horizon between May 10 and August 2—a whopping 84 days.
This pair of images shows how the Arctic tundra around Utqiaġvik transforms from spring to summer during its prolonged period without a sunset. They were acquired on May 7, 2025 (left), and August 6, 2023 (right), with the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9.
Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) is located on Alaska’s North Slope at 71.29°N latitude, more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. Point Barrow, a headland north of the city, marks the northernmost point in the United States and the boundary between the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. The city has a population of around 4,500 people, about 60 percent of whom are Iñupiat.
Although the calendar indicates it is springtime, the landscape in May still has the black-and-white look of winter. Some sea ice clings to the coastline, while pieces of various sizes float farther offshore. A layer of snow covers the land but is thin enough for the outlines of lakes and the winding paths of rivers to show through. The tundra here only receives about 4.1 inches (105 millimeters) of annual precipitation on average, and much of it occurs in the summer months.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
