Despite what Anchorage residents might be seeing outside, it's been a particularly snowless winter in Alaska's largest city.
Sure, several inches of the white fluffy stuff blanketed the city this week. But coming off two very snowy, record-breaking winters, Anchorage's snow cover has been mostly abysmal this time around, much to the chagrin of outdoor sports enthusiasts and snow removal companies alike.
National Weather Service climate researcher Brian Brettschneider is back for our Ask a Climatologist segment. He says, at least in Anchorage, this winter set records, too, but this time for the lack of snow.
Below is the transcript of an interview with Brettschneider on Alaska News Nightly. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Brian Brettschneider: If you look at just the core winter months — December, January, February — Anchorage had about 5 inches of snow, and that is a record low amount by more than a factor of two. So normally during that time, almost 45 to 48 inches of snow should fall, and we had 5. It basically stopped snowing since the middle of November, so it was really one for the record books.
And we have, actually, data going back, at the airport only to 1953, but at other stations here in town, Merrill Field and before that several stations downtown, going back to 1916. So in 97 years, there's really been nothing like this in terms of the low snowfall. This is really a year that stands out by itself.
Casey Grove: What does that tell you about the climate, I mean, the difference from one year to the next? Does that say much about volatility or what?
BB: Well, I think really what it says is about the local perspective, right? So the previous two winters in Anchorage were two of the snowiest on record. Over large areas, they were unremarkable winters. You know, 50, 60 miles away from Anchorage, it wasn't anything that people would remember.
This year, 50, 60, 100 miles away from Anchorage, it's been a great snow year. But they have to listen to us whine about it. And so it's just a question of, were we in the bullseye one year? Were we in the bullseye this year or outside the bullseye? And there's really not a lot to be read into the bigger picture.
But again, statewide, it's been a really good snow winter, a lot of snow, particularly between the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range. Almost everywhere, not everywhere, but almost everywhere, is above average for snow depth at the moment, snow water. We're kind of in a little snow desert, as it were, here in Southcentral.
CG: I mean, obviously, a big, huge chunk of the state's population is here and experienced this very low snow winter. What sort of things did you hear from people about that? I mean, in terms of their displeasure?
BB: Well, I haven't heard anyone say, "I wish every winter was like this." You know, we like to do stuff outside. It's a long winter, the nights are long, and we need to get out. And it was rainy and icy for weeks, and then without the snow on the ground, it's been really dark. And again, it was just really a winter that that, you know, nobody could love.
CG: So with with such little snow on the ground right now, in this part of the state anyway, is there a higher risk of wildfires, or earlier risk of that?
BB: We are under a higher state of alert for early season fires. You know, most of the fire acreage in Alaska in any given year, something like 98%, is lightning started. And the lightning season generally kicks in sometime in the last week of May, some years in the first week of June. So any fire that happens before then is a human-started fire.
So it's really kind of up to everyone who might be listening to to take extra caution to not let campfires burn. Or I even saw in New York State, they had a wildfire started from people cooking s'mores in their backyard. So even something as innocuous as that could be a problem, if conditions are really dry, yeah.
