While the Lower 48 Freezes ...

Warm weather blanketing Alaska for days now has shattered records, turned plants green and changed the way some people live. 

The temperature hit 62 degrees at Port Alsworth, on Lake Clark, on Monday, tying the highest January temperature ever recorded in the state, the National Weather Service reported.

Nome peaked at 51 degrees, topping the city's warmest January with a temperature typical of early June, forecasters said.

In Anchorage, snow continued melting Tuesday in the latest of 15 consecutive days with temperatures at 32 degrees or above. As of Monday, it was the city's fourth warmest January ever recorded.

Green grass greets motorists along Northern Lights Boulevard just west of C Street on Tuesday, January 28, 2014, outside the Wells Fargo building. ERIK HILL — Anchorage Daily News

We're slowly cooling off again; the weatherman said that we'll lose "one to three degrees each day" over the next several. But even then we'll be 10 degrees warmer than normal, and there's no snow in the forecast.

Races Cancelled Due to Lack of Snow

Next weekend's Tustumena 200 sled dog race on the Kenai Peninsula and Saturday's high school cross-country ski race at Service High both pulled the plug on Friday.

Victims of a January false breakup, both events were looking at wet trails instead of snowy ones.
Officials of both events didn't their best to stay afloat, as it were. The Tustumena looked at various trail alternatives and the Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage thought it had saved its race by moving it from Kincaid Park to higher elevations, but there is water, water everywhere.

"We just don't have the snow and way too much water in the hills to put together a quality race," Tustumena 200 race director Tami Murray said in an email.

It's 48 degrees. In January. In Alaska.

Sigh ...

Sigh ...

Nothing new to report here. Yesterday day was WAY too warm & sloppy. Today, the slop continues.

It was 36 when I got up at 5:30, and it's up to 42, two hours later. Seriously, this is about the time in January when we typically have one to three weeks of temps at -20° F. or colder.

This whole "sixty degrees too warm" thing is getting to me, it seems. Sorry 'bout the complaining.

Sunset, Friday afternoon

Here's a snippet from the Daily News about the freakish weather:

A band of wet, warm weather barreled into Southcentral Alaska on Friday and stirred up an odd blend of high winds, slushy roads and even rainbow sightings.

Peak gust speeds of more than 90 mph were reported in Bear Valley and at Glen Alps, and gusts elsewhere on the Anchorage Hillside approached 70 mph , according to the National Weather Service.

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson recorded a gust of 67 mph, said Dave Stricklan, a meteorologist with the Anchorage forecast office.

The winds and warm temperatures, which reached 48 degrees in some parts of Anchorage Friday, prompted a series of avalanche warnings to the south. For the first time this season, Department of Transportation crews headed out to reduce avalanche risk by blasting artillery at spots along the Seward Highway.

What a Sloppy Mess

We had ice this morning, and then freezing rain. Now it's 42° and the streets are standing full of water. It can't drain away because the sides of the roads are lined with small icebergs and huge clumps of melting snow.

Intersections are flooded, creeks are rising ... and now the high winds are moving in, with expected gusts here in town up to 50 mph, and 80 mph on the hillside. What a mess!