The Blizzzzard

This past weekend, a blizzard blew into Nome, and we got our first real taste of Alaskan winter.

We'd already had several weeks of snow on the ground - snow that would blow around like sand when it became cold and windy - but this definitely took things "up a notch." (Bam!)

The whole Western Alaska region got socked with a solid dose of winter weather, with strong winds in excess of 45 mph, yet more inches of new snow accumulation, and wind chills easily dipping below zero. (Many villages are already seeing routine daily temperatures fall below zero - without the wind chill.)

Something that immediately struck me this past weekend was just how much snow was getting inside the entries of the (radio) station, despite all of the windows and doors being shut. The heavy winds were pushing in a good amount of snow through all of the miniscule spaces between the doors and their doorframes, and the white stuff was collecting inside both the front and back doors - forming mounds more than deep enough to accommodate a deep bootprint, or to make at least a dozen robust snowballs.

It may be just the inexperience of an outsider, but the snow really seems "different" here than in the East Coast. Back in Jersey or Massachusetts, snow always seems a transient thing: even in the depths of the coldest winter, you can never count on it lasting too long, because a single unseasonably warm night or rainfall could melt it all away, leaving you with a pile of slush. The snow of the northeast thins out when thousands of cars drive over it, when bag after bag of de-icing salt is thrown down, and when it becomes "dirty snow," mixed in with sand and pebbles and dirt.

Snow at home always seems as fickle as rain: it might dominate today, but it's gone tomorrow. As a result, I think it's more of a curiosity in Jersey.

In Nome, all of that is gone. There is nowhere near the traffic in Nome that we have back home, so - guess what? - there isn't nearly as much "dirty" snow. And unless we have an unusual period of warmth, the snow we have now is pretty much here to stay for 5-6 months. So it'll just keep building up and building up, forming our snow "base," blowing around and forming snow drifts that can change with the winds, and, in general, acting like just as much a permanent part of the landscape as the ground, the rocks, or the ocean.

So in short, it's winter until May. And I'm pretty excited.