Summer, Such As It Is

We're less than a month away from the summer solstice, and the days are deliciously long already. It's daylight when we get up, and daylight when we go to bed. 

We're some 300+ miles south of the Arctic Circle. That's the line above which the sun doesn't set in the summer. It does set here, but only just. There's a six-week window (three weeks on either side of the solstice) where it just barely dips below the horizon, and comes right back up.

That gives us 24 hours of daylight, of which about 90 minutes is dusky. It's our reward for surviving the seven months of winter, especially the month of December when we only get about 5 hours of daylight.

Of course, with the typical perversity of Alaska summers, it's often cloudy at night. But still, it's light outside at 0400 when I get up. And the temps are still cool, with only two days above 60° so far. That will change, of course.

In the political world (shudder), Anchorage just elected a far-left mayor to go with its far-left Assembly. Generally speaking, taxes will go up. Roads will continue to deteriorate, and things will not get better.

We are ever-so-glad that we moved away from that mess, years ago. Smallville is a great place to live, and the Anchorage mess to the south bothers us not at all.

It's That Time Again

We're firmly in the annual six-week stretch when it never gets dark, here in southcentral Alaska. There's twilight from about 01:30 until around 03:00, but you could still go for a walk. Or even cut the grass, if you have REALLY understanding neighbors.

And for those visiting during the summer, we're fairly far south. The farther north you go, the longer the full light lasts. North of the Arctic Circle, it doesn't get dark at all during this season.

And someone usually asks if the lack of darkness interferes with sleep. Yes, for some people it does. We've always used light-blocking drapes or wooden mini-blinds. Newbies have been known to tape black plastic trash bags or aluminum foil over their bedroom windows. 

But it's usually not a problem. One merely has to keep an eye on the time, to know when to go to bed. It is easy to miss your regular bedtime when the sun is still shining in the windows. 

Long Days

It's the time of year we Alaskans live for: long days with almost no darkness.

Nearly 22 hours of visible light, and the summer solstice is still over three weeks away. 

We're lovin' this. :)

Well On The Way to Summer Solstice

Around the end of May, we enter a six-week stretch when it doesn't ever get dark, with 22+ hour days.

Springtime milestone: Anchorage hits 15 hours of sunlight

ANCHORAGE (KTUU) -

Sunny skies, calm winds and long days are back, prompting more summer-oriented residents to return to parks and trails across Anchorage.

On Tuesday, Southcentral Alaska witnessed the first day of the spring season with more than 15 hours of daylight. The last date the area saw that much light was Aug. 23. 

... The light is returning to Alaska at a rate of about five minutes per day. The sun now rises before 6:30 a.m., and on Tuesday, it set at 9:30 p.m, giving residents plenty of time to get off work and enjoy the sunlight.

In June, we get about 90 minutes of dusky weather, but it never gets dark. The sun merely dips below the horizon for a few minutes, and pops right back up.

There are those who can't sleep when it's light outside, but room-darkening shades or curtains go a long way. Some even put aluminum foil or black plastic trash bags on their bedroom windows. We're grateful we never had to do that. 

It's glorious to have daylight whenever you want it. :)

Interesting Weather We're Having

A couple of local outlets are saying we could have record warmth in Anchorage today, calling for highs in the 70s. Most are predicting mid-60s, though. With forecasts varying by 10 degrees, there's a degree of uncertainty. (See what I did there?)

Meanwhile, this list appears on the local NBC affiliate's homepage:

Severe Weather Alerts

12 areas are now under advisories, watches or severe weather warnings.

• Bristol Bay
• Central Interior
• Copper River Basin
• Deltana and Tanana Flats
• Denali
• Lower Kuskokwim Valley

• Middle Tanana Valley
• Northeast Prince William Sound
• Susitna Valley
• Upper Kuskokwim Valley
• Upper Tanana Valley and the Fortymile Country
• Western Kenai Peninsula

Anchorage, the Mat-Su Borough (north of us), and the Kenai Peninsula (south of us) were under a "red flag warning", with warm/dry/windy conditions leading to extreme danger of wildfires, until midnight. Since it hasn't rained, it's hard to understand why the warning is no longer in effect.


Nobody's objecting to warm, sunny weather, though. After an Alaskan winter, most of us crave the long hours of our summer daylight. Gotta get that Vitamin D, ya know.

Gee, What a Fun Morning

It's been one of those days.

Yesterday afternoon, one of the two main cooling fans in my building (115,000-square-foot medical office building) burned out. Technicians were on-site within an hour and replaced the fan.

Temps climbed by five to ten degrees above set point during the outage. But no worries, everything's fixed, right?

Except the new fan burned out overnight.

When I arrived this morning, the coolest temp in the building was 78. One suite was over 90 degrees. I called the answering service for the HVAC* contractor & told them what was happening.

For the next 3 1/2 hours, I helped them by monitoring the digital controls and dealing with unhappy tenants.

Good news is that the building is now almost back to normal. I've been here about 4 1/2 hours, and I'm exhausted.


And just think, I almost called in sick this morning. I'm not sick; just didn't want to leave the couch this morning. Now I know why.


Is it the weekend yet?



* Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

The Longest Day: Alaskan Summer Solstice

Alaskans get asked a lot of questions about that. Everyone's heard of the "Land of the Midnight Sun", and wants to know all about it. Myths about Alaska abound: no, we don't live in igloos. And no, it's not covered in snow year-round. But about the solstice ...

Q: "Is it true the sun never sets?"

A:  No, Anchorage isn't far enough north for that to happen. We're 500± miles south of the Arctic Circle, north of which that phenomenon occurs.

Here's what does happen:  today, it was light enough to see where you're walking at 2:33 a.m. It will not get truly dusky again until 1:28 a.m. tomorrow.  That's 23 hours of daylight, give or take.

To put it another way, we're required by law to have our headlights on from around 11:10pm until 3:50am tomorrow. But we don't really need 'em, this time of year.

Of course it's been cloudy all day, with only short breaks of sunlight. But it's not important ... this sunny spell of "almost always light" lasts for six or seven weeks. Yes, the days will start getting shorter again tomorrow, but we won't have days shorter than, say, St. Louis until late October.

Then the daylight hours will dwindle down to about 4 1/2 hours in December - but that's another post.

Daylight

The view to the southeast

I note with approval that there is light in the east at 6am, and it was quite bright enough at 7am to read or do whatever you wish. And it's light out until almost 10pm, these days.

Alaska is now in its headlong rush* to reach the "land of the midnight sun" status - gaining almost six minutes of light daily - and that's perfectly okay with us.

By the end of this week, I won't need headlights to drive to work again until some time in October. And that's okay, too.




*Okay, so it's hyperbole. But not by much.

Summer Solstice & the QOTD

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

"The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."

~ Ayn Rand

* * * * *

Today is the longest day, which is saying something in Alaska. I was up at 2:00 this morning, and - with the blinds closed - it's still light enough to walk around. The hotels are traditionally crammed to capacity on this day, as tourists from all points south flock here to experience the longest day.

This first photo was taken around 9:30 last night - the second was taken nearer midnight, before I went reluctantly to bed. You can see that a) the sun isn't moving that fast, and b) it isn't moving that far, either.

Here in Anchorage, we have about 21 1/2 hours of daylight, with 90 minutes of dusk (assuming it's not cloudy). Farther north in Fairbanks, they have their traditional Midnight Sun baseball game which begins, appropriately enough, at midnight. Of course, they're only 25± miles from the Arctic Circle; we're some 300 miles farther south.

All I know is we enjoy the daylight, making up for the long months of winter. This time of year, with its long days and lush foliage, makes life here worth any depredation we may feel elsewhen. After all, where else do you see people try to stay up for four days in a row? "Come home when it's dark" means "late July", as more than one parent has learned to their regret.

It's the best time to be an Alaskan. Y'all come on up - we'll make room.

Land of the Midnight Sun

Because you asked: we're there; in fact, we've passed it.

It's now light enough to go for a walk from 3:14 a.m. until 12:42 a.m., and we're still gaining daylight - several minutes per day - although that's slowing down as we approach the solstice.

Any other questions?

Longer Days, Shorter Nights

Over the weekend, I posted a pic taken at 9:30 or 10:00 pm. Here are two more, taken last night at 11 p.m., and this morning at 5:15 a.m.

There's nothing spectacular about the pics; just demonstrating the long hours of daylight which seem to fascinate those from the Lower 48.



11 p.m., 5/23




5:15 a.m., 5/24

Monday, June 22

Good morning!

It's cloudy and 47 degrees in Anchorage this morning, with some light sprinkles here & there. Well, maybe "there" but not so much "here". There wasn't enough rain to need to turn on the wipers, although a few spots did appear during the drive to work.

* * * * *

A couple of pro-Sarah Palin websites sponsored an on-line fundraiser for Gov. Palin's legal expenses, regarding the more-than-a-dozen ethics complaints which have since been dismissed as baseless. Her debts are as much as $600,000 according to some sources; the web-a-thon (for lack of a better term) raised just shy of $116,000, so far. If you're interested in this story, please go to http://www.conservatives4palin.com/. And no, I'm not affiliated in any way with either website or the fundraiser.

* * * * *

As you know, yesterday was the official beginning of the meteorological summer season. Here in Alaska, that translates to 24 hours of daylight.

In Anchorage, we have approximately 22.5 hours of broad daylight, and 1.5 hours of dusky light in the wee morning hours. In Fairbanks, 300 miles to the north, it doesn't even get dusky. When the sun is out, the solstice is spectacular in the abundance of light.

Yesterday and last night, however, it was very cloudy. We had rather more "dusk" than we'd have preferred. Having said that, I should point out that this 24 hours of usable light lasts for about five weeks, give or take. There will be plenty of sunlight for the next couple of months, so no one's complaining about the clouds.

Well, maybe we are ... just a little. And AccuHunch Weather is guessing the clouds will burn off, later today. Life is good!

Thanks for stopping by!

Good morning!

It's -7.6 degrees, according to the Weather Underground station three blocks from where we live, headed for 6 above -- or so they're guessing. We received another inch of snow overnight, which makes 6" or so, since Friday.

Mt. Redoubt is still rumbling & shaking, but is otherwise decidedly non-spectacular. Areas near the summit are still melting, and there's a stream of mud running down from the steam plumes. The volcanologists still think it will erupt, but are saying that if the winds are right, Anchorage might see ... are you ready? ... 1/10 of an inch of ash-fall. The Apocalypse is upon us! Circle the wagons! Hoard bread and milk!

Or just go to work and live life as usual.

I don't mean to make light of it ... well, okay: I do, but it won't be the end of civilisation as we know it. It would be an inconvenience, and washing ash off of the vehicles will be tricky in these temperatures. Of course, AccuHunch is guessing we'll be 20 degrees warmer tomorrow. So we'll see whatever there is to see.

Everyone has relaxed, as the threatened eruption has been hanging over our heads for more than a week ... and we'll be fine.

In other news, our Legislature apparently has introduced bills to a) name a state dog, b) add a new verse to the state song, and c) eliminate daylight saving time. It seems there's nothing too serious on their agenda, this season.

I will be the first to admit that daylight saving time makes little sense for Alaska, at least in terms of saving daylight. We get 22 hours of sunlight in mid-summer, so what exactly are we saving? And if we're saving it, could we use it in December, when the days are only 5 hours long? Please?

Okay, I've officially run out of thing to babble about, so I'll stop. Let me hear from you - are there any pictures you want to see?

Sunday Again

They just keep coming around, don't they? I suppose that beats the alternative, though.

We've been out & done some shopping - wife & younger daughter to Sam's Club, and I to Sportsman's Warehouse, which is quickly becoming a favorite haunt. I was very heavily into recreational shooting (which I've been doing since the age of 6, at my father's side) up until about six years ago. That's when we started preparing for our move up here.

The drive to Alaska required us to spend four days and nights in Canada, which was a nice experience whereby we met some delightful people. However, their gun laws, being so much more restrictive, made me wary of trying to transport an entire gun safe & contents across the border. Rather than go through all the paperwork hoops, I decided to sell or give away all of my guns, ammo, and other supplies.

What with one thing or another, I never got around to starting up again until this past Christmas. Now I get to re-supply, which is fun for me.

The weather here is just below zero, and Accu-Hunch is still guessing we'll get as high as 15 today, with light snow moving in ... perhaps to the tune of a few inches by tomorrow. Nothing major, but the north wind is rather raw. After the last two weeks, we've acclimated somewhat to the severe cold, and don't need terribly heavy coats. Any exposed skin, however, still pays the price.

So I picked up a shoulder rig and some safety glasses. With the weather returning to normal, I can finally schedule a visit to the local range & see how my new pistol behaves.

I've had some nice conversations with my old friend in Missouri - the one who was best man at our wedding, lo these many moons ago - and it seems he & his new wife want to come see us. That will be nice.

Not so many folks want to visit here in the winter, thinking that it's perpetual night, and frigid. Well, they're wrong: it's not dark. After the last two weeks, however, I'm not so sure they're wrong about the frigid part.

The perception that we have ice and snow year-round is false, of course. You've seen lots of pictures of the greenery which I've posted. Our summers are rather short, but very green and lush due to the long days (22 hours of sunlight in June). And we don't live in an igloo. Nor do we have a pet moose or polar bear. And when we run low on gas, we don't tap into the pipeline. It doesn't have gasoline in it, anyway ...

So we're happy to hear that someone wants to visit while it's white outside. It will be nice to get reacquainted with Dana, and get to know Sandi-with-an-i. (She made sure to mention that to me, so I'm reproducing it here.)

It's starting to look grey and snowy out there, so I'm going to wrap this up & try to do something productive with my afternoon.

Don't be a stranger - come on back!