Many thanks for your responses, Deke. I hadn't seen your response to my lengthier, previous question until now, but thank you for that as well, which helps me confirm my understanding. Looking back, I think I posted that one sooner than I should have, as I was still wading through the technical lingo on the PHA to try to understand the basics of it, so my apologies for the long-windedness there! The 2009 Menne & Williams article introducing the PHA ended up helping me get a handle on things, too. The PHA is a fascinating and powerful tool. To make sure I understand something from your response today, when you say, "We compute the divisional averages after the PHA has done its job of correcting the station records," the "divisional averages" you're referring to there are the ones the PHA generates, right? And the climate divisions listed in the 2012 article are derived through a fully separate (cluster analysis) method. One final quick question if I could, which I'm having trouble finding the official answer to, is how many monitoring stations there are in Alaska that are part of the GHCN. I've seen that there are 1,221 stations in the U.S. HCN but that that covers only the lower 48 states. If you happen to know of an official source noting how many Alaska stations are included in the current GHCN that you could direct me to, I'd be super grateful. Thank you again for your work and for fielding these questions. Chris