Mega storm hits Alaska Buried Under 18-Feet of Snow

Alaska Town Buried Under 18-Feet of Snow
The worst winter anyone can remember in Alaska has piled snow so high people can't see out the windows, kept a tanker in ice-choked waters from delivering fuel on time and turned snow-packed roofs into sled runs.

While most of the nation has gone without much seasonal snow, the state already known for winter is buried in weather that has dumped more than twice as much snow as usual on its largest city, brought out the National Guard and put a run on snow shovels.

As a Russian tanker crawled toward the iced-in coastal community of Nome to bring in much-needed fuel, weather-weary Alaskans awoke Thursday to more snow and said enough was enough.

"The scary part is, we still have three more months to go," said Kathryn Hawkins, a veterinarian who lives in the coastal community of Valdez, about 100 miles southeast of Anchorage. "I look out and go, 'Oh my gosh, where can it all go?'"

More than 26 feet of snow has fallen in Valdez since November. The 8-foot snow piles outside Hawkins' home are so high she can't see out the front or back of her house. Her 12-year-old son has been sliding off the roof into the yard.

In the nearby fishing community of Cordova, more than 172 inches of snow has fallen since November; snow began falling again after midnight Wednesday. The Alaska National Guard was called in to help move the snow, and the city is running out of places to put it. Front-end loaders are hauling snow from dump piles to a snow-melting machine.

"That's our big issue, getting our snow dumps cleared for the next barrage of snow," Cordova spokesman Allen Marquette said.

South of the mainland, a fishing vessel, a house boat and a pleasure craft moored in Kodiak Island's St. Paul Harbor sank when they became overloaded with snow, the Coast Guard said.

Anchorage had 88 inches fall as of Thursday — more than twice the average snowfall of 30.1 inches for the same time period. The weather service counts July 1 through the end of June as a snow season. More than 7 inches had fallen Thursday and more than a foot was expected.

This year's total already broke the record 77.3 inches that fell during the same period in 1993-94. If it keeps up, Anchorage is on pace to have the snowiest winter ever, surpassing the previous record of 132.8 inches in 1954-55.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• alaska
• winter
• winter storm
• climate change
• earth news
• global cooling
• global
• warming
• 2012
• snow storm
• high winds
• Valdez
• Cardova Alaska
• nome

[TheSmittel]

only local newscasters normally mention this

[Adellay]

Everyday I'm Shovelin'

[rehabib2]

@perplexington it depend mostly on the temp and distance of the sun .

[droumdoum]

A little bit o' this, a little bit o' that.

[TheFullmoonslight]

That's some snow alright !!!!!

[perplexington]

@perplexington By far the most dire threat to life on our planet is not climate change but the loss of biodiversity due to habitat destruction via over population, migration and immigration of humans, combined with the existence of large, over crowded cities, which have long ago exceeded the capability of the land base that they are constructed upon to support them.

[perplexington]

@perplexington In order to create large quantities of rain and snowfall, vast amounts of heat energy are required to produce evaporation. During an ice age, for example, the amount of heat on parts of the earth's crust must be proportionately higher. The cause of such extreme temperature increases are not yet known although some theorize that approaching planets, asteroids and comets could trigger them.

[perplexington]

@rehabib2 It is my understanding that global climate change is real but that only a small percentage of it is man made. Warming and cooling trends are governed by the sun's and the earth's magnetic field strength, which fluctuates over time. This field mitigates the amount of cosmic radiation entering our atmosphere. Cosmic rays affect the amount of cloud cover. With increasing levels, cloud cover intensifies. The inverse also applies. Cloud cover, in turn, affects temperature.

[NAIMKHALID]

It am sorry for the people living there. But it is good just to show to the political liars who always talk about global warming.

[rehabib2]

if global warming was real , wouldnt it not snow ? why does al gore own ocean front properties and fly around the world in a jumbo jet ?