Salcha Weather

Well here we are at the shortest day of the year. Picture was shot at high noon here to show the sun height as we see it here. 3 hours and 41  minutes in Fairbanks. Sun rise 1047 here and sunset was at 1444 today.  Not much heat coming from that low angles. Solar panels on the  Wx station struggle to charge up the super cap during the day. At least so far no -40 to shut down  the Davis stations. Still shopping around to find an wireless station that will not quit at -40. Everything I have found is either wired  or the transmitter quit at the above  temps. back in the old analog days Davis VP2 measure temps down to -80 before the battery died up at Jim’s creek camp on the Dalton.

Anyway Monday saw an 945 mb  low chewing it way up the  Bering  Sea producing 70 kt plus  winds. That same storm is now  headed toward Wrangel Island  and NW away from Alaska but behind it there was coastal erosion, blizzard condx all along the SW and Western Coast of Alaska. Most of the week been  winter storm warning  for  Northern  Alaska  and the north slope. On the Dalton  heavy snow conditions ended up  having 2 semi’s stuck with highway crews having to dig them out. Highway department close the road till conditions improved.

The Kodiak low was at work  producing  storms to  keep the south coast wet and some areas freezing rain. While here in the  shadow of the Alaskan range we saw mostly flurries. Fairbanks and north saw  snow up to 12 inches in places. Last storm  snow was around us  but we only got 2.5  inches compared to what was falling  North and south of us.

Looks like we are going to have an dry and sunny week end from the forecast.

Strong high pressure over the Copper River Basin and southern
Yukon Territory will build north over the NE Interior and Beaufort
Sea Fri. This is now causing strong southerly gap winds through
Alaska Range passes that will continue into Sat. This is also
causing south winds through Brooks Range passes that will continue
through Sat. This will This will cause a moderately strong Tanana
Valley Jet to develop Fri and continue through the weekend, and
can expect NE winds to 20 kt over the Elliot Highway to develop
Fri as well.

So far no wind advisory here  in the Harding Lake area. Most generally they start around the Birch lake area  about 8 miles south of here.

Was looking to get out and do some Ice fishing  but  due to the mild temps we been having it not safe to even try. Salcha river has open leads on it were normally it frozen over this time of year. In fact I heard an air boat running up it the other day from the cabin.

Guess this all for now

Stay well and keep an log on the fire and light in the window

John