This Morning The temperature here in North Pole was -47.
Yep That is not a typo. It was that cold. We are in for another night of - 45 to - 50.
Then up to 0 on Sunday and Monday with snow.
It is hard to believe that it is almost February.
Yukon Quest begins February 9
Check It Out
http://www.yukonquest.com/servlet/viewnewslist
XXOO
Jason
Backwoods Home Magazine
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
We got snow.
Boy did we get some snow. It warmed up here. To about 10 above actually.( Yes that is considered warm around here, this time of year) And we woke up to about 8 inches of snow thursday morning.
It's funny too, that here when discussing the temperature it's ALWAYS described as above or below. Such as right now it's 9 above zero so it's " 9 above". Because it really does get cold such as 42 below( which we have felt twice so far). I just thought that little fact was interesting.
I hope to have some snow pictures up soon. Anyway, here's the story:
(Published By the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)
Biggest snowfall in years blankets Fairbanks
By Tim MowryStaff WriterPublished January 18, 2008
Fairbanks dog musher Shannon Erhart went to sleep Wednesday night hoping the National Weather Service’s forecast for an inch or two of new snow overnight would be right.
She wasn’t disappointed to wake up Thursday and find out they were wrong.
“I woke up quite happy this morning; I think all dog mushers in the Interior did,” said Erhart, who serves as president of the Alaska Dog Mushers Association. “This should fill in all the dips (in the trails).”
Residents awoke Thursday to find 8 to 10 inches of new snow on the ground. It was the biggest single snowfall in Fairbanks in several years and ended what so far this winter has equated to a snow drought in Alaska’s second-largest city.
The heavy snow came as a surprise to residents as well as meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.
“We were not expecting that kind of snow to develop,” meteorologist Bob Fischer said.
A cold front stalled over Fairbanks and mixed with an unstable air mass aloft to produce what Fischer called a “very localized” snowfall. The snow fell over such a small area — within about a 50-mile radius of Fairbanks — that it was practically impossible to predict.
“Smaller scale things like this the models aren’t able to pick up,” he said. “The resolution is just not there.”
Not that Erhart and other outdoor types who prefer ample quantities of snow were complaining. Prior to the overnight dump, only 23.2 inches of snow had fallen in Fairbanks, which is half the normal snowfall for the season.
“This will be pretty sweet,” said Scott Chesney, president of the Two Rivers Dog Mushers Association.
The snow fell just in time for a 100-mile race the club is holding this weekend and should make things easier on both dogs and mushers, given the rough trail conditions that have prevailed up to now.
“This will help a lot,” he said. “Everybody won’t be getting slammed around now.”
The National Weather Service did not have an exact measurement on the snowfall because the official measurement is taken at Fairbanks International Airport at midnight, but Fischer said most reports around town put the total at about 8 inches. Snow started falling around 9 p.m. Wednesday, and 3.5 inches had fallen at the airport by midnight. The rest fell between midnight and 9 a.m.
“An 8-inch snowfall in Fairbanks is about a once in 10-year event,” said Fischer. “Even a 4-incher is a big one by Fairbanks standards. Most of our snow comes down in 1- and 2-inch trickles.”
The last time Fairbanks had that much snow in one dump was two years ago on Feb. 25-26 when 8.7 inches of snow fell, said meteorologist Mike Richmond. But that snowfall occurred over the course of two full days, while Wednesday night’s dump all came within 12 hours.
“For a single event for 12 hours or less I would say this is the heaviest dump we’ve had in several years,” said Richmond, who was looking forward to hitting the ski trails on his day off Friday.
The weather service tracks snowfall by calendar day, from midnight to midnight. The 8 to 10 inches of snow that fell overnight in Fairbanks Wednesday will go down as a two-day snowfall, Fischer said.
The record one-day snowfall in Fairbanks is 16.0 inches on Feb. 11, 1966, the first of three straight days of heavy snow in Fairbanks that year. Another 10.9 inches fell on Feb. 12 that year for a record two-day total of 26.9 inches, and 7.7 inches fell on Feb. 13 for a three-day record total of 34.6 inches of snow.
The second heaviest one-day snowfall in Fairbanks was 15.5 inches on Jan. 19, 1937. Another 10.5 inches fell on Jan. 20 for a two-day total of 26.0 inches, which ranks second on the list of heaviest two-day snowfalls.
Crews from the state Department of Transportation and city public works department were scrambling to clear the main roads around Fairbanks before the end of the work day Thursday, according to Dan Schacher, acting Fairbanks district superintendent for DOT’s northern region.
“We’re not doing anything except getting roads open,” he said. “We’re trying to make it safe so we don’t have those big two-foot berms in the middle of the road.”
City crews were “coping with it the best we can with the resources we have,” said Kevin Fitzgerald at the public works department on Thursday morning. The city had ceased snow removal operations and was focusing on getting main streets cleared, he said.
“We have teams of graders scattered throughout town trying to open up the main arterials first,” Fitzgerald said. “From there we move into residential areas.”
Fitzgerald asked residents to be patient and not to put snow from their driveways into the streets. Doing so is illegal.
Downhill ski area operators were happy to see the snow. Until now, slopes have had grass and brush sticking up through the snow. Only 4 to 6 inches of snow fell at Mount Aurora Skiland on Cleary Summit about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, but Brenda Birdsall said it will improve conditions greatly.
“This is beautiful,” she said. “I wish we were open today.”
Moose Mountain Ski Resort owner Roger Evans, meanwhile, was skiing in Snow Basin, Utah, and wishing he was back in Fairbanks.
“Below zero, windy and no new snow,” is how Evans described conditions in Utah. “It sounds like Fairbanks is going to have a better weekend than Utah.”
Even though winter is half over, snowmachine shops around town are hoping the snow will help spur what have been slow sales so far this winter.
“This is what we needed in the fall,” said Bill Larry at Alaska Fun Center on College Road.
On Thursday, customers seemed to be more interested in snow-removal equipment than snowmachines, Larry said.
“I’ve had some guys come in for plows for four-wheelers,” he said. “They were hoping they could get away without buying one until today.”
The same was true at Northern Power Sports on Van Horn Road.
“We had a guy waiting at the door this morning who wanted a four-wheeler with a plow,” said David Baldwin, a salesman at Northern Power Sports. “We’ve sold lots of (four-wheeler) plows already this morning.”
The snow is a lot better for business than the 40 degree below temperatures earlier this week, Baldwin said.
“People come in when it snows; when it’s 40 below, nobody comes in the store,” he said.
The forecast wasn’t calling for more significant snowfall until possibly early next week.
It's funny too, that here when discussing the temperature it's ALWAYS described as above or below. Such as right now it's 9 above zero so it's " 9 above". Because it really does get cold such as 42 below( which we have felt twice so far). I just thought that little fact was interesting.
I hope to have some snow pictures up soon. Anyway, here's the story:
(Published By the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)
Biggest snowfall in years blankets Fairbanks
By Tim MowryStaff WriterPublished January 18, 2008
Fairbanks dog musher Shannon Erhart went to sleep Wednesday night hoping the National Weather Service’s forecast for an inch or two of new snow overnight would be right.
She wasn’t disappointed to wake up Thursday and find out they were wrong.
“I woke up quite happy this morning; I think all dog mushers in the Interior did,” said Erhart, who serves as president of the Alaska Dog Mushers Association. “This should fill in all the dips (in the trails).”
Residents awoke Thursday to find 8 to 10 inches of new snow on the ground. It was the biggest single snowfall in Fairbanks in several years and ended what so far this winter has equated to a snow drought in Alaska’s second-largest city.
The heavy snow came as a surprise to residents as well as meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.
“We were not expecting that kind of snow to develop,” meteorologist Bob Fischer said.
A cold front stalled over Fairbanks and mixed with an unstable air mass aloft to produce what Fischer called a “very localized” snowfall. The snow fell over such a small area — within about a 50-mile radius of Fairbanks — that it was practically impossible to predict.
“Smaller scale things like this the models aren’t able to pick up,” he said. “The resolution is just not there.”
Not that Erhart and other outdoor types who prefer ample quantities of snow were complaining. Prior to the overnight dump, only 23.2 inches of snow had fallen in Fairbanks, which is half the normal snowfall for the season.
“This will be pretty sweet,” said Scott Chesney, president of the Two Rivers Dog Mushers Association.
The snow fell just in time for a 100-mile race the club is holding this weekend and should make things easier on both dogs and mushers, given the rough trail conditions that have prevailed up to now.
“This will help a lot,” he said. “Everybody won’t be getting slammed around now.”
The National Weather Service did not have an exact measurement on the snowfall because the official measurement is taken at Fairbanks International Airport at midnight, but Fischer said most reports around town put the total at about 8 inches. Snow started falling around 9 p.m. Wednesday, and 3.5 inches had fallen at the airport by midnight. The rest fell between midnight and 9 a.m.
“An 8-inch snowfall in Fairbanks is about a once in 10-year event,” said Fischer. “Even a 4-incher is a big one by Fairbanks standards. Most of our snow comes down in 1- and 2-inch trickles.”
The last time Fairbanks had that much snow in one dump was two years ago on Feb. 25-26 when 8.7 inches of snow fell, said meteorologist Mike Richmond. But that snowfall occurred over the course of two full days, while Wednesday night’s dump all came within 12 hours.
“For a single event for 12 hours or less I would say this is the heaviest dump we’ve had in several years,” said Richmond, who was looking forward to hitting the ski trails on his day off Friday.
The weather service tracks snowfall by calendar day, from midnight to midnight. The 8 to 10 inches of snow that fell overnight in Fairbanks Wednesday will go down as a two-day snowfall, Fischer said.
The record one-day snowfall in Fairbanks is 16.0 inches on Feb. 11, 1966, the first of three straight days of heavy snow in Fairbanks that year. Another 10.9 inches fell on Feb. 12 that year for a record two-day total of 26.9 inches, and 7.7 inches fell on Feb. 13 for a three-day record total of 34.6 inches of snow.
The second heaviest one-day snowfall in Fairbanks was 15.5 inches on Jan. 19, 1937. Another 10.5 inches fell on Jan. 20 for a two-day total of 26.0 inches, which ranks second on the list of heaviest two-day snowfalls.
Crews from the state Department of Transportation and city public works department were scrambling to clear the main roads around Fairbanks before the end of the work day Thursday, according to Dan Schacher, acting Fairbanks district superintendent for DOT’s northern region.
“We’re not doing anything except getting roads open,” he said. “We’re trying to make it safe so we don’t have those big two-foot berms in the middle of the road.”
City crews were “coping with it the best we can with the resources we have,” said Kevin Fitzgerald at the public works department on Thursday morning. The city had ceased snow removal operations and was focusing on getting main streets cleared, he said.
“We have teams of graders scattered throughout town trying to open up the main arterials first,” Fitzgerald said. “From there we move into residential areas.”
Fitzgerald asked residents to be patient and not to put snow from their driveways into the streets. Doing so is illegal.
Downhill ski area operators were happy to see the snow. Until now, slopes have had grass and brush sticking up through the snow. Only 4 to 6 inches of snow fell at Mount Aurora Skiland on Cleary Summit about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, but Brenda Birdsall said it will improve conditions greatly.
“This is beautiful,” she said. “I wish we were open today.”
Moose Mountain Ski Resort owner Roger Evans, meanwhile, was skiing in Snow Basin, Utah, and wishing he was back in Fairbanks.
“Below zero, windy and no new snow,” is how Evans described conditions in Utah. “It sounds like Fairbanks is going to have a better weekend than Utah.”
Even though winter is half over, snowmachine shops around town are hoping the snow will help spur what have been slow sales so far this winter.
“This is what we needed in the fall,” said Bill Larry at Alaska Fun Center on College Road.
On Thursday, customers seemed to be more interested in snow-removal equipment than snowmachines, Larry said.
“I’ve had some guys come in for plows for four-wheelers,” he said. “They were hoping they could get away without buying one until today.”
The same was true at Northern Power Sports on Van Horn Road.
“We had a guy waiting at the door this morning who wanted a four-wheeler with a plow,” said David Baldwin, a salesman at Northern Power Sports. “We’ve sold lots of (four-wheeler) plows already this morning.”
The snow is a lot better for business than the 40 degree below temperatures earlier this week, Baldwin said.
“People come in when it snows; when it’s 40 below, nobody comes in the store,” he said.
The forecast wasn’t calling for more significant snowfall until possibly early next week.
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