Backcountry Skiing..Your Winter Window Into The Chugach.
With April just around the canyon its worth noting that March was on record to be the driest in history til a few days ago. Three weeks of below average temperatures and persistent, gusty northerlies all set by a “Bora” high along the Alaska/Canada Arctic coast. It morphed and moved and now has finally eroded. March 2017 will probably be […]
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Perusing over the NWS statistics today and came up with this. Leading the stats is the 10-year averages for snowfall during the past 40 years showing a rather stark downward trend for the month and some indication of our future climate Also, three of the five warmest Marches have occurred in the past 15 years. The last time we had […]
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Weather records for Valdez go back to 1918 or 1903 depending on which month. There are gaps, but not much with only ten years missing including 2016. The soldiers at Fort Liscum no doubt kept excellent weather records at their post as that would have been a daily duty of the quartermaster crew or a cook. It has always been […]
Read moreWe are well into our third consecutive winter in the City of Valdez without a major wind event (+60mph) or significant snowfall event (+20″/24hr). The current snowpack depth and seasonal snowfall totals are slightly above average. A couple things stick out when running the numbers on Valdez climate history for January. I am only using data from 1964 to 2015. […]
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A quick glance at Decembers back to 1964 indicates Valdez can get a heck of a lot of snow. Seven Decembers have dumped over 100″ on our mountain town. It can be downright brutal at times as the coldest temps of the year, heavy snows, hurricane force winds, and even drenching rains are in the range of the possibilities. Cold […]
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With my first ski-less October ever behind me I look up at the mountains tops and wonder when our first snows will break the back of fall. About 8″ has fallen mostly above 5000′ over the past few weeks and is now weathered. October was incredibly dry and temps have been well above normal. Lows continue to get bumped to […]
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