Winter Weather Wonderings: What’s in store for SE AK?

After a couple very mild winters this one is feeling different. Northern southeast Alaska has been cold and windy virtually all November while farther south things have been close to normal or a little below. The wind graph for November in Skagway shown below is very telling of the strong outflow winds that have brought […]

temperature graph

Heatwaves, Southeast Alaska style

We’ve had some warm days lately in northern Southeast Alaska, and if perception is worth anything, it always feels warmer just coming off winter. Actually much of Alaska feels this surge of warmth in May (and sometimes in April), but it is a time of the year when southeast can keep up with the interior […]

Precipitation patterns & perceptions

Of all the weather elements, precipitation seems the most chaotic when it comes to spatial and temporal patterns. In reality, I think wind is probably more variable over both time and distance, but I guess we must understand that, since we don’t talk about it nearly as much as peculiar precipitation patterns such as long […]

hours of sunup on Nov 15th

Are you SAD yet?

Everybody is different, but the reduced light in the North and the gloomy weather in many parts of Alaska at this time of year affect almost everyone to some degree or another. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is the fancy name for the winter blues, bad weather blahs, cabin fever, hibernation instinct…fill in the blank with […]

happy skier

Celebrating the end of the snow drought

While some folks back east may have been mightily inconvenienced by recent snows, here in Alaska most people like to see a little snow in the winter. This winter many of us have seen very little. Here in Haines, one of the snowiest sea level towns anywhere, things were looking pretty brown until last week, […]