Weather station, in fog - where's the snow?
Friday, September 21, 2012 at 10:00AM ;)
Hmmmmm.... I am scheduled to fly to Point Lay early Friday morning. I wonder if I will go? If you read these words, then I did go. I am preparing this post on a foggy Thursday night. Before I go to bed, I will set it to post at 10:00 AM - about the time I am scheduled to arrive in Point Lay. So, if I fly, it will appear just as it is now.
If I don't fly, then I will change this post before the scheduled post time of 10:00 AM.
Make sense?
This, by the way, is the Barrow weather station.
It can snow during any month of the year and in fact, it has snowed, before I came. Even Wednesday morning, there were a few flakes on the ground but they didn't last long. When I first started coming to Barrow, the snow always set in for good by this date and so did freezeup.
I remember elders at the time saying that when they were growing up, snow and freezup came before August ended. Today, Fannie Akpik told me that when she was a girl, freezeup generally came during the first week of September.
Now, sometimes, it doesn't come until October.
We will see what it does this year. Maybe it will snow and freezeup will settle in before the day ends. I kind of doubt it, but maybe.
Reader Comments (4)
i find theses weather patterns worrisome
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/09/13/f-franklin-arctic-ice-retreat.html
Hey Bill -- what has to freeze for it to be "freezeup"?
Twain - I agree, It is all very worrisome.
Kathy - The surface of the ground (the subsurface here is always frozen) standing puddles and such - basically, the temperature has to stay consistently below freezing.
The weather has been a bit curious, it feels like spring hitting summer instead of fall. Not to mention all the storms hitting the rest of Alaska. Global warming?