Our historic snow

Saturday Sal and I went to Bear Tooth Theater for a sing-a-long with the movie White Christmas.  Early on there is a song that contains the lyrics, “I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow.”  There was a lot of laughter in the theater at that; many a path has been cleared here in the last couple weeks.

Anchorage is on pace for the snowiest December on record.  Another half inch this month and the December 1955 record will be surpassed.  We had three major snowstorms and a couple of minor flurries between December 6 and 15, with the back-to-back storms dumping 41 inches of snow here.  All this on top of the rainy summer has made 2022 the wettest year on record.

Our apartment complex has been great.  Snowplows come through and staff shovel the sidewalks often before I’m even out of bed. 

The city streets and sidewalks were cleared pretty well after the first 12 inches fell December 6-7, but 16 inches 5 days later then 9 inches 3 days after that has been a challenge for Anchorage workers.  Sal and I were out Wednesday right as the last storm was starting.  The pavement was mostly ok, but while plowing had been done, clean-up is the second step in the process and there hasn’t been time or equipment for that.  The snow doesn’t melt, so it doesn’t go away by itself.  Between the first and second storms, we saw large dump trucks with snow piled in, but we haven’t seen much of that lately.  I don’t know where the snow is eventually dumped, but it is taken away somewhere.  Now you see very large piles of snow in parking lots and by sides of streets.  Traffic lanes are narrower because there is nowhere to push the snow.  

But we haven’t had to deal with it too much, only enjoy it, and it is beautiful.  We saw kids playing ice hockey today on a tennis court.  We saw people walking with snowshoes.  And a man downtown was carrying his ski’s probably to one of the trails here that are groomed for skiing once the snow comes.  Kids in our apartment complex were sledding down a pile of snow. Trees are spectacular, like outdoor Christmas trees and lacy veils.  And the mountains are now completely covered in snow.

We are having no problems handling the cold weather or short days.  There are some winter solstice events going on now, celebrating the return of the light, so we made it through the worst of that.  It will get colder, we know.  Cold, dry air comes down in January and February from the NORTH POLE!!   Brrrr!!  Doesn’t that sound cold! Bet it will feel cold, too.  But it’s -4 here now, and we handle that ok, so we’ll see.