Well, where do I start ...
It has been snowing here for over an hour. The forecast was for an inch today and a few more tonight. Anything less than a foot of snow hardly gets mentioned here; eight inches is "a dusting."
Now AccuHunch is calling for 6" to 11" in the next 24 hours, and for Thursday ... they won't even hazard a guess. It just says, "snow likely." Duh, gentlemen. It's January in Alaska; of course snow is "likely." The question is how much, and they're not saying. That could be good or bad...
The USGS and the Alaska Volcano Observatory are saying that it's no longer a question of "if" but "when" Mt. Redoubt will erupt. They expect an ash and smoke plume at least 8,000 feet high, and the ash would reach Anchorage in four hours. Other places, farther south, would get it even sooner.
Of course, if the eruption occurs during the snowstorm, the snow would pick up a lot of the acidic elements in the fallout, and we'd have acid snow. Jolly.
So we've all dug out our dust masks, or purchased them (they're all sold out at most places), purchased additional air filters for the vehicles (they're mostly gone, too), and are standing by.
The snow is a given; the volcano ... who knows? Time will tell, but we're buckled down & waiting.
In other news: concern has been growing for some time that south-central Alaska is running out of easily-obtainable natural gas. You probably know that there are two pipeline proposals on the table for bringing that gas from the North Slope to the rest of Alaska, and on to the Lower 48.
It seems the State of Alaska is proposing to release wood bison into the central Alaskan plains, sometime next year. Since they are listed as "endangered," it would severely curtail the ability of any gasline developer to build a spur line through that area to the south-central part of the state (Anchorage etc.).
Several legislators are calling on Gov. Palin to choose a different release point. You can read the rest here.
That's enough for now. Thanks for stopping by!
John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
4 comments:
Will be praying that the volcanic ash and dust isn't too damaging when it erupts.. Keep us updated!
White snow + black ash = gray landscape
Yuk!
Good luck with the quantity of snow on Thursday. It's a difficult prediction as a slight change in temperature could mean wetter, denser snow and fewer inches of the stuff as it packs under its own weight, compared to a light fluffy large number of inches, or tiny crystals but fewer inches. (We've had all three today alone!)
Oh, and those wood bison?...Send 'em along. The freezer's almost empty.
No, seriously, it should be obvious that a different release point needs to be chosen--if one is available. If no alternate site is available, the bison project should be scrapped and the gas line project promoted.
Our temps on Thursday should be in the single digits overnight, and highs around 10 above. Any snow we get in that temperature range will be feather-like in consistency, and we can clear off the cars by driving a half-block. Well, we use the wipers first, so we can FIND the street.
My understanding of the bison release is that it's something AK agreed to, in conjunction with US Fish and Wildlife. There are plenty of alternate sites available; we have 587,000 square miles to choose from.
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