We found winter...in Alaska (1-9-12)
While cold and snow have been lacking over central New York and the Lower 48 states we have found it in Alaska and it is making news. Nome is iced in and awaiting the arrival of a Russian oil tanker with much needed fuel. Cordova (near Anchorage) has been buried with snow and was under a state of emergency. What’s going on? First there is the cold.In inland areas, the cold started building right around Christmas and has not let up. Now typically in a place like Fairbanks it is cold in early January with a high close to zero and a low about -15 F but they are well below that. Their average high so far this month is -19F and the average low is -39 F. Overall, their temperatures are running about 17 degrees below normal since Christmas eve. With the jet stream during this time running well to the north of central New York across Canada, this cold air is just ‘bottled up’ over Alaska. And Fairbanks has been on a temperature roller coaster since November:| Month | Fairbanks Temps |
| November 2011 | -10.8 F |
| December 2011 | +8.1 F |
| January 2012 (so far) | -21.8 F |
The combination of cold air locked in over the interior of the state and a storm track up through the Gulf of Alaska has led to some prodigious snowfalls along the southern coast. Already this month Valdez has seen 66” of snow and they are all the way up to 290” of snow for the season. Normally, Valdez is very snowy but this is a lot even by their standards. Typically they would ‘only’ be at 147” at this point in the season so even at this snowy location they’ve had twice as much snow as they would normally expect through early January. They have 81” of snow on the ground as of this morning which is almost 7 feet! 
Courtesy: Alaska Dispatch, Kate HerringFor perspective, the normal seasonal snow in Valdez is 320” and their all-time record is 561” In most years, Valdez would give the Tug Hill a run for its money. Keep in mind, Valdez is right on the Gulf of Alaska so this is not the light and fluffy lake effect snow. In December, for example, they had 152” of snow and melted down there was over 16 inches of liquid in that snow.Valdez is up to 8 days this winter with at least a foot of snow and tomorrow (Tuesday) could be the 9th day as they are under a blizzard watch. The pattern change that we talked about last week will likely cause the cold and snowy weather over Alaska to break down over the next few days.
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