And Again, Weather

Here is Harris Harbor, very well snowed in. This picture was taken from the Juneau side, looks southwest to Douglas Island, with Admiralty Island in the far background.

So far this year the total snow fall is average, however we had less than normal through January and the first ten days of February have brought three more inches than the standard for the full month.

Yahoo sever weather alert says,

RISING TEMPERATURES COMBINED WITH RAINFALL ON THE SNOW PACK WILL CAUSE STANDING WATER TO FORM IN LOW LYING AREAS. DRAINAGE IN SOME LOCATIONS WILL BE HAMPERED BY AN ICE LAYER WELL BELOW THE SURFACE. EXPECT SOME LOCAL STREAMS TO BEGIN FLOWING WITH INCREASING WATER LEVELS.

RAINFALL ON SNOW WILL INCREASE THE WEIGHT OF THE SNOW LOAD. PERSONS SHOULD BEGIN TO REMOVE DEEP SNOW LAYERS FROM STRUCTURES WHERE INCREASED LOAD MAY BE A PROBLEM. BOAT OWNERS ARE ADVISED TO CLEAR SNOW FROM DECKS AND ENSURE THAT BILGE PUMPS ARE OPERABLE.
STANDING WATER THAT DEVELOPS ON ROADWAYS MAY ALSO BE A HAZARD. WATER OVER ICE WILL CAUSE SLICK SURFACES. SOME AREAS MAY EXPERIENCE FREEZE-THAW CYCLES WHERE STANDING WATER REFREEZES.

Doesn't that sound exciting? There are plans for my living room roof to be cleared, yet again, tomorrow. That will make three times in two weeks. The rest of my apartment has a pitched roof, but the living room is flat. And we don't really want it to collapse. At least I don't have to have bilge pumps!

By Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire

Local Weather

I thought you might like to see a couple of pictures from Tuesday's newspaper of the local snowfall.


Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire

Larry Buzzell points out the size of the snow berm Monday in front of his Riverside Drive home. Some Riverside Drive residents say they are tired of the city leaving giant berms of snow in the street blocking their driveways.

Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire

Kevin Nye clears snow Monday under the watchful eye of a bronze brown bear sculpture in front of the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery. Juneau received about 7 inches of snow in 24 hours, and a heavy snow warning was issued for Monday night

Weather Update

Well, we are expecting a lot of snow today. Between seven and 13 inches, according to Yahoo. And, continuing snow off and on for the next week. At the moment* it is falling heavily and the plow just went by for the third time this morning. The Hooligans are fascinated. I'm rather enjoying it myself.

* 9:00 A.M. Alaska Standard Time.

Image courtesy wunderground.com. Click to enlarge

Well, It Got Warmer

You would not believe what is falling out of the sky! SNAIN! Huge globs of wet, wet, wet snow falling very fast because it is very heavy. Yahoo weather says it is 37º and light rain. I believe the temperature. According to Everything 2

Snain is partially (though not fully) melted snow that will most frequently fall when the air temperature is between about 0.5 and 3.5 Celsius (33 - 38 degrees Fahrenheit) .

It is an interesting phenomenon to watch, but I can tell you it is no fun to walk in.

P.S. Bitty and Julie have each tagged me for a meme, and I will do them this week.

Photo courtesy Belski's Blog

Warm and Cozy

This photo of Juneau, taken by Elise Tomlinson from Douglas Island, is a good winter view. From the sky, I'm thinking it was taken during the day, with a lot of cloud cover, but from the lights in the city, obviously not at high noon. The mercury has been rising, clouds have come in, and we have snow. The temperature was 28º today and expected to be in the mid-30s tomorrow. Tomorrow we expect rain, and most of the snow at my elevation* will wash away. Meanwhile, it feels really nice to not have to wear as many layers, to go barefoot indoors, and to have my bedroom window open a couple of inches again.

* My apartment is as high as the lights go up the side of Mount Roberts.

Photo courtesy Elise Tomlinson

Palm Trees and Airports

Do click to enlarge picture.

So I was over at Rambling and Roving, Cuppa and Anvil Cloud's travel blog, and she had posted some pictures of palm trees they had seen in British Columbia. That's pretty far north for palm trees, and it reminded me of when I lived in Fairbanks and a group of friends and I decided that we wanted to plant palms out at the airport. We would put them on elevators so that during the winter they would be under ground and protected under sunlamps. And then, when planes landed, the elevators could raise them and surprise all of the folks flying into the frigid, snowy land.

I have since seen snow on palm trees, one year when I was living in central California. So, here is a picture I found on Google Image. I still think it would have been a hoot to line the runway at Fairbanks International with them, but I suppose it would cost too much. Oh, the fun I could have and the joy I could spread if only I won a lot of money!

The Weather Report: Broken Record

It just piles up and piles up. The city is plowing almost every day and on the few days when they aren't plowing, they are loading snow into dump trucks and hauling it either to the channel or the deep woods, depending on which is closer. I've lost count of the number of times my exterior stairs have been shoveled this year, I'm just really glad that my landlady takes care of it. Last week she had two young women out shoveling the snow off my living room roof. There are ice cycles hanging off most roofs. Then we get a warmish day, and it begins to melt, and if it is on a pitched roof, it can come down all at once like an avalanche. Too much of a good thing.

We are well on our way to breaking the record for snowfall this winter. At this point, we have already had the fourth highest, at 177 inches (223 at Eagle Crest, our local ski area). If it continues as it has been doing, we could easily get above the 194 inches of the current record. That's Alaska for you -- every year that I lived in Fairbanks was the record for something. Most snow. Earliest snowfall. Most windy days. Latest breakup. Something. It isn't that consistently record breaking in Juneau, but it is always something to talk about.

And we are currently experiencing 11 1/2 hours of sunlight a day. I have turned off the porch light for the season. Since my newspaper is delivered (carried by hand up the stairs and placed in the box) before I get up, when I turn it on in the fall I just leave it on. When I leave in the morning, I am going to need it on when I return. Once I turn it off, it is off until fall.

In A Nutshell follows.

PotpouriAn Update on Recent Stuff

And here we have a picture, from Wyoming, of a cedar waxwing tossing a crab apple into the air and catching it. I found it in SFGate.com and immediately had to add it to our collection of wonderful stuff about these lovely birds. One of the things about them that I really like is that, when they are at rest, if you get close enough, their feathers seem to have been carved from wood. Actually, when I was in high school, I thought that was how they got their name -- assuming that the wood involved was cedar. Actually, they favor cedar trees and the waxwing part comes from the colors on the tips of the wings, which varies according to their diet.

And here, also from SFGate.com, is a photo from Juneau, of a brother and sister digging their car out of the snow. It took about an hour.

The snow fall has finally fallen off. Yesterday morning was the first time since last Thursday that the Care-A-Van could get up to my place -- I did go to work on Tuesday, taking cabs both ways. Nice to be able to get back to my normal routine.


Also yesterday, the weather was so nice (in the 30s) and between merchants shoveling and the rain the sidewalks were clear enough that I decided that I was going to have something for lunch that I hadn't fixed myself. So, instead of making a roast pork sandwich and eating it at my desk with tabooli, I got to decide. Go across the street to Rainbow Foods and get something healthy and good to bring back or down the hill to be waited on? Down the hill it was, as I sauntered down to The Wild Spice Grill, our upscale Mongolian barbecue, seen in this photo. The standard MB choices are not exactly like any MB that I ever went to in California or Fairbanks or Anchorage. In all of those places, you fill your bowl, and they bring soup and rice to the table. Not here. We fill our bowl, including rice or noodles, and they add a totilla like item. And they don't serve it in the bowl, but rather on a lovely rectangular oriental plate. I don't include the rice or noodles in mine.

Or, they also have a menu that includes Jamaican jerk chicken sandwiches and a number of other exotic dishes. And they make their own gelato.

Walking down hill was wonderful. After being cooped up for almost a week, just to be able to walk down the street felt so free. Smiling and saying hi to people, looking in the windows of two art stores, laughing with a couple of toddlers, breathing in the fresh air. Ah, I hadn't noticed how very cooped I'd been until I got out.

And, finally, go to Zits . This is so what I was talking about.

In A Nutshell follows.

Here We Go Again

EASTERN CHICHAGOF ISLAND- JUNEAU BOROUGH AND NORTHERN ADMIRALTY ISLAND- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...HOONAH...JUNEAU 415 PM AST SUN MAR 4 2007

...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING UNTIL 6 PM AST MONDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN JUNEAU HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM AST (Alaska Standard Time) MONDAY.

SNOW WILL INCREASE THIS EVENING AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES LATE TONIGHT AND MONDAY. STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATION OF 1 TO 2 FEET IS EXPECTED OVER THE NORTH-CENTRAL INNER CHANNELS THROUGH 6 PM MONDAY.

LOCALLY WINDY CONDITIONS CAN ALSO BE EXPECTED WITH GUSTS 40 TO 45 MPH CAUSING BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW REDUCING VISIBILITIES DOWN TO A 1/2 MILE AT TIMES.

A WARNING MEANS THAT A WINTER STORM IS ALREADY OCCURRING OR IMMINENT. THIS STORM COULD POSE A THREAT TO LIFE AND PROPERTY.

So far, since it started at 5:30, we've had a good eight inches and the roads are, once again, impassable. Will I go in tomorrow? Who knows -- if the road is cleared, I may go in for long enough to get things at the office so I can work from home. We will have to wait and see. Meanwhile, we had one and a half days between storms.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

And the snow continued to fall. For over 41 hours, the skies were out of sight as the pretty flakes came down. About 6 this morning, the storm was over and we can, once again, see further than a short block. From Thursday noon until after I went to bed last night, I could see only the two buildings on the cross street and nothing further -- not even the trees 20 feet beyond them. This morning, I can see the mountain tops on Douglas Island and way down Gastineau Channel and the clouds in the sky. And the plow came by at 6:30, so I can get out of here when I want to.

Because we didn't know how it would be last night, and were being advised to stay off the roads if possible, we canceled our Saturday morning breakfast, and are doing Sunday lunch instead. Other than that, the world is quiet and very white right now. The parking lot across the street is filled with large, white lumps. And the world looks like a Christmas card.

Snowed In

And it continues to come down. Yahoo Weather says our storm warning continues until 6 p.m. We've got visibility for less than a mile, my little hillside looks like the inside of one of those snow balls that has been shaken good and hard.

At the moment, we have a plow on our block, but I've been advised not to go to work today, because not only would I need to get there, who knows how it will be when it is time to come home and if the plow will have been around again between now and then. So, I'm going to curl up in my recliner and read and have a lazy day.

Two posts for today below.

Blizzard Warning

Oh, excitement. We have a blizzard warning. I was sent home at noon. Fourteen inches of snow expected by dawn Friday, wind gusts up to 65 mph, particularly by Lynn Canal and downtown. That's me. Downtown.

So, as you sit in your comfy house, think of me with my Hooligans in our comfy apartment with all the excitement of what people think of as Alaskan weather outside. Howling wind, falling snow.

Let It Snow*

Rare white lion cubs experience snow for the first time at West Midland Safari Park in Bewdley, England. They are, in no particular order, Casper, Kiara, Lara and Toto. Associated Press photo by David Jones

Roof! went the dog: Snowdrifts as high as 10 feet left half of Rock Springs, Wyoming, inaccessible, including the front door of this bloodhound's home. Laramie Boomerang photo by Barbara J. Perenic via Associated Press


Horse frost: Frigid air in Great Falls, Montana, turns a pony into a graybeard. Great Falls Tribune photo by Robin Loznak via Associated Press


* From SFGate.com

What the Snow Covered

In the late 60s I taught Montessori in Fairbanks, Alaska. In those days the snow came earlier and stayed later, covering the ground for up to nine months at a time. In all of that time, we never saw the ground. These two vignettes happened against that background.

Snowmen
Mary Lou, a five year old, was painting one winter day. She painted a house and a snow covered yard with three snow men. When I walked by, the roof was covered in snow. A few minutes later, I walked by again and now the roof had been painted green and the snowmen were gone. I asked Mary Lou what had happened and she explained that the snow had fallen off the roof and covered the snowmen.

Mud
One April day on the play ground, I was talking to Robin, a four year old, and we agreed that the winter had been long. I said that I could hardly wait to see mud. Six weeks later, Robin's mother brought her to school and she ran up to me with her hand closed over a treasure. I said Hi and asked what she had and she smiled from ear to ear and answered, "A present for you" and opened her hand to a fistful of mud.