Heavy roof snow loads

There has been a lot of snow this winter in many parts of Alaska. Here are some maps of snow depth from the Alaska River Forecast Center. Keep in mind many are from remote automated stations, some at high elevation. Fairbanks and other parts of the interior were hit hard over the Christmas holiday with […]

Early season 100+ mph storm in Southeast AK

Southeast Alaska was hit hard Friday night, October 1st, 2021. High wind, heavy rain throughout, and, at quite a few locations, thunderstorms and even hail. Fortunately, in most places the worst was relatively short-lived. The storm was a potent one for the first of October. I’ll do the usual play-by-play and statistics, then examine a […]

Alaska weather on a wild roller coaster

We’ve been on this roller coaster before, but recent heat in southern Southeast Alaska took us to new heights. Sunday, January 14th saw many records broken around SE including a new record high for any January temperature in any place in Alaska with reliable records. The new record of 66 F (18.7 C) was set […]

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 […]

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, […]

Why Fairbanks cold snaps aren’t what they used to be

It’s been a cold winter across most of Alaska. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last. During every winter there are relatively colder and warmer periods. This year these cold snaps and warm spells seem to be aligned pretty well to the calendar months: November was cold, December warm, and January…one of […]