Monday, October 14, 2019

Snow Cover in the Interior

Rick T. here with with a (mostly) clear sky from Monday afternoon October 14, 2019, showing a fairly well defined line between areas to the south and east of Fairbanks that picked up quite a bit snow during the second week of October and areas to the west, where low elevations are still snow-free. Urban Fairbanks is right on the edge. The snowfall from Delta  Junction southeastward was quite impressive. 15" of snow at Tok was the greatest October snowstorm (over two days) there on record (climate obs since the late 1950s) and second greatest overall. Delta Junction does not often get a foot of snow in one pop, but they did from this event, including severe drifting. 


2 comments:

  1. Thanks Rick, an impressive event indeed! Delta Junction was down to 1/4-1/2 mile visibility in heavy snow with winds gusting over 30kt on Friday afternoon. The hourly obs included 15 hours with snow and 1 mile or less visibility, which is the most on record for a calendar day since the ASOS was installed in 1997. The two-day record appears to be 17 such hours on Dec 25-26, 1997, although I don't see any corroborating reports of heavy snow accumulation in that event.

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  2. The Dec 1997 event did see between 4 and 5 inches of snow reported from Delta Junction area cooperative sites and Dry Creek, which is not shabby, but nothing like this event.

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