Good Morning, Blogosphere

Welcome to my little corner of it, anyway.

We've had slowly-warming temps over the last six weeks, and very little snow. Three days ago, the temp finally inched above 40 for the first this year (unless we broke 40 during that late-January warmup, but I digress). As a result, the melting of the snow cover has been accelerating. Unfortunately, what happens is that the snow gets all watery, and a water film forms on the surface of the hardpack snow, leaving a surface providing all the traction of axle grease. Then it all re-freezes overnight, with temps around 20 degrees.

So last night, the Nat'l. Weather Service scared the bejeebers out of everyone in Southcentral AK, predicting our usual late-season heavy snow. They called for 5" to 9" by this morning's drivetime. Only not so much.

Since it was 40 degrees at bedtime, the beginning of the precip was in liquid form. It continued as the temp fell, resulting a fresh layer of pebbly ice on the existing ice.

By breakfast time, with temps in the upper 20s, precip has finally changed to snow. That leaves us walking and driving on watery ice-covered roads; there were two cars in the median already at 6:45 as I drove to work, one upside down, the other on its side.

We're supposed to get back into the upper 30s today*, so most of last night's stuff will be gone by the end of the workday. But NWS (bless their darling hearts and empty heads) predicts some type of precip daily for the next week. But then, they usually do ... whether it actually, um, precipitates is anyone's guess - and said guess is just as likely to be accurate as theirs.

One final note: NWS also removed all its personnel from Anchorage about a year ago, so our "official" forecast comes from Seattle. What the hey - they're only 1300 miles away. What could go wrong?


In other news, the sun has melted much of the snow from southern slopes now, so the Dall sheep have returned to the cliffs above the Seward Highway (the only highway*) leading south out of town, along the Turnagain Arm. They're fun to watch.


* Assuming that part of the forecast bears any resemblance to what actually happens.
** I'm trying to recall any other city of Anchorage's size (280K±) with only one road in or out - you can go north or south (no other choices). It's not coming.