Not Much Snow In Vermont, So Go To Buried Alaska?

Photo from a Facebook post by The Alaska Life gives a 
taste of what intersections in Anchorage, Alaska 
currently look like after record snowstorms, 

 We all know Alaska is for the most part bitterly cold in the winter. 

We'd expect snow to accompany that Arctic air, but this winter, populated parts of the state are absolutely buried in it.  

As of Tuesday, Anchorage, Alaska has so far had 104.6 inches of snow this season. That's easily the earliest in the season they've ever cracked the 100 inch snow mark.

 If Anchorage does not get so much as another flake of snow this winter (ha!) they've still had two feet more snow than they normally do in an entire season.

The city's last big installment of snow was the 16.6 inches that fell this past weekend. Since there's few places to put the snow, it's taking a long time to clean up the mess.  As of Tuesday, there was 37 inches of snow on the ground in Anchorage. 

It doesn't help that a frigid cold snap - fairly intense even by Anchorage standards has moved in.  High temperatures will be below zero until at least Saturday and low temperatures will flirt with 20 below. (Normal lows this time of year in Anchorage are in the low teens with normal highs in the low 20s)

There's also so much snow that roofs around Anchorage are beginning to collapse.  A warehouse roof collapsed this week near Anchorage. There were people inside, but they all managed to escape uninjured. 

Anchorage is also an earthquake-prone city, so I hope they don't have any temblors with all that snow on the roofs to make things even more unstable when the shaking starts.

Last year, 107.9 inches of snow fell in Anchorage, so this makes it the first time since at least the 1950s they've had back to back winters each with over 100 inches of snow. There were roof collapsed last year, too, one of which killed a person. Officials in Anchorage are worried the same thing could happen again in the coming days and weeks.

More snow is in the Anchorage forecast from Saturday night into Tuesday night. 

Juneau is much more temperate than the rest of the state.  Snow tends to come and go there, but this month has been ridiculous.  Back to back snowstorms in mid-January amounted to 64.7 inches in less than two weeks. Snow cover on the ground peaked at 36 inches.

The snow was so heavy that it sank some boats in Juneau harbor 

Then it turned warm, with 3.5 inches of rain within six days. The snow cover melted to zero with six days. The snowmelt and rain obviously created  some flooding around Juneau.  

The snow in parts of Alaska is no doubt extreme, but National Weather Service climate researcher Brian Brettschneider told Alaska Public Radio that this winter's cold is not that odd for Alaska.

Up in Fairbanks, it has been often in the 40s below zero for the past week. But it used to go to 50 below or colder in Fairbanks every year. Now it's maybe once every decade. 

That's all thanks to climate change. 

There's even some speculation and research suggesting the snowier winters swaths of Alaska are seeing in recent years has to do with climate change. The air near Alaska is now tending to be warmer than it used to be. Warmer air can hold more moisture, so precipitation has been increasing in Alaska. Four of the top 10 wettest years in Anchorage have happened since 2004.  

"Warmer" in Alaska can still mean temperatures well below freezing, so of course much of the extra precipitation can be snow.