Gulkana, 62°10'N 145°27'W, 1570.5 ft a.s.l.
Gulkana Airport is located in the Copper River basin 2 miles west of the river and 9 miles south of the village of Gulkana. The airport is approximately 150 airline miles northeast of Anchorage and 200 miles south-southeast of Fairbanks. The facility can be reached by both highway and air, and is near the junction point of the Glenn Highway, leading to Anchorage and Canada, and the Richardson Highway, leading to Fairbanks. Terrain surrounding the station experiences no rapid changes in elevation. To the east the ground drops about 400 feet to the river. East of the river, the land rises gradually to about 3,000 feet at a distance of 18 miles, and then rises abruptly to 12,000 feet at the top of Mt. Drum, about 25 miles away. Elevation changes in all other directions are small. Numerous small river and creek valleys give the appearance of a fairly rough terrain despite the small elevation changes. From a much larger scale viewpoint, mountain ranges exist in all directions. The Alaska Range lies about 75 miles to the north. Mt. Drum to the east is the western end of the Wrangell Mountains. Fifty miles to the south are the Chugach Mountains. To the west at a distance of about 100 miles, the north-south oriented Talkeetna Mountains, with their southern extension joining the Chugach Range, form a barrier between Gulkana and Anchorage. Elevations of the various mountain ranges are from 6,000 to 12,000 feet. The mountains exert a significant influence on the climate of the Copper River basin.
There is no doubt that Gulkana Airport is under a dominant continental influence. Typical of this are the extremes of temperature in summer and winter, with a range as large as 156 degrees. Because the sun makes only a brief appearance during the middle of the day in winter, the average minimum temperature usually remains below zero. In contrast to the cold winter months with short days, summer is pleasantly cool, but warm enough for outdoor activities, with 18 to 20 hours of sunshine. Mountains surrounding the Gulkana area capture a large portion of the moisture which might otherwise reach the valley, particularly from the Gulf of Alaska which deposits annual amounts in excess of 60 inches on the windward slopes of the Chugach Range. There is no commercial agriculture in the Copper River basin, but with well over half of the annual total precipitation occurring during the four months of June through September, there is adequate moisture for gardening. The average length of the growing season is 78 days.
Cloud data are available for a short period, but the heaviest precipitation occurrence in summer may be indicative of maximum cloudiness occurring during these months.
Surface wind directions are prevailing southeasterly during spring, summer, and early fall, and from the north during late fall and winter. Monthly wind speeds are highest in summer. However, the infrequent occurrences of strong winds in excess of 40 mph have always been associated with the lighter wind months from October through April.