Don: We don't get Chinook winds in MN--our snow won't melt for quite some time. However, intrusions of warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico disposed of 2 feet of snow in southern Wisconsin in a few hours when I visited my brother at Christmas. These warm humid air masses are getting further north as time goes on, in a few decades they will start to reach Minneapolis, and we'll lose our snow at midwinter.
Studded snow tires are not allowed in Minnesota, and last week the Twin Cities were the world's largest bumper car arena, because the entire highway and street system was covered with black ice from the condensation of auto exhaust, and it was too cold for salt to work. Commute time were 2-4 hours to get 5-10 miles. I take the bus to work, which has its own lane, and it was fun to zoom right past the traffic jams and accidents and watch 2 million people in cars bumping into each other on ice as slippery as a skating rink. Unfortunately, they applied several tons of salt per road mile so that the ice would melt as soon as temperatures got above zero. Thats a bummer for trees--we'll have a lot of dead roadside trees in the spring. Lee DON BERTOLETTE wrote: > Don/Lee- > I had been holding off on any Alaska weather reporting, as we're known > for cold weather. Now that the weather we had until Wednesday is now > upon you guys, the following conditions were reported over the last > week in the Anchorage Daily News: > > *1)* Last Monday, the record low for the state was -68degrees F. > That's about the temperature that gasoline turns to a gelled slush > that could be picked up with a colander > *2)* Last Tuesday, the record for averaged low over two weeks in > Anchorage was -22degrees F, with clear skies through most of that. > *3)* Last Wednesday, we experienced a chinook (warm winds emanating > from near tropical latitudes) raising even night time temps into the > 30s and daytime into the 40s, ABOVE ZERO for a 48 hour change > approaching 60 degrees in much of Anchorage. > *4)* Last Thursday, the 24-30" of snow we had on the ground for most > of the winter, has pretty much been melted (certainly off the roofs > where we had 12-16" packed snow), making for slippery roads (schools > have been closed for three days now), and significant flooding of > streets in town, and fears of crosstown creeks overflowing soon) > *5)* Today, I drive to our Egan Convention Center, where I'm a > volunteer 'pourer' for the annual Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine > Festival (50 craft brew beer vendors, offering over 200 craft beers, > barleywines, and meads)...I've chosen the early shift, to avoid being > on the roads by late evening...;>} > *6)* Tomorrow, a low pressure system is coming in that is even > stronger than Wednesdays...through the last three days, wind warnings > ranged between 40-85 mph through Turnagain Arm and the upper hillsides > of East Anchorage, with gusts predicted to range between 85-105 mph > (Alyeska, our world class ski resort a half hour from Anchorage, > recorded a 122 mph gust at Chair Six). > > In terms of driving, our Subaru Forester with studded Hakapeliita 2 > snow tires easily takes us to places we can't walk on, without some > sort of studding for the shoes/boots. > > This has all been with a backdrop of predicted 'colder winter than > normal', and a 'warmer summer than normal'...here in Alaska where most > of us believe in Global Climate _/*Change*/_ !!! > Time to hunker down~! > Don RB > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org You are subscribed to the Google Groups "ENTSTrees" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
