On a Lifelong Journey to Learn my Place
This fall and early winter it has seemed like few days on the water very nice, and as a result I’ve been thinking that this year’s weather/sea state has been worse than last year’s which, for some reason, I remember as being reasonably mellow. After commenting on this, I decided to look up the buoy … Read more
Partial clearing made for some interesting views while Connor, Rowan, and I walked over to UAS this afternoon.
Temperatures remained quite cold, but winds diminished significantly by later this afternoon. It was interesting to see all the polished ice intermixed with thin patches of wind sculpted snow. As windy as it got here over the last couple of days, it was much stronger elsewhere.
From today’s weather synopsis:
THE WEATHER PATTERN THAT CAUSED FREQUENT WIND GUSTS OVER 50 MPH SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FROM JUNEAU TO SKAGWAY AND THE CENTRAL OUTER COAST IS GRADUALLY WEAKENING. THE HIGHEST MEASURED WIND GUST WAS 150 MPH /130 KNOTS/ AT SHEEP MOUNTAIN SOUTH OF JUNEAU AT 3540 FEET ELEVATION. HIGHEST WIND GUST AT SEA LEVEL WAS 103 MPH /90 KNOTS/ AT CAPE SPENCER IN CROSS SOUND.
Forecast is for relative calm tomorrow and winds picking back up later in the week s a low approaches the coast of British Columbia. Fortunately, temperatures are also forecast to rise.
Pictures from today were taken as I walked across Swan Lake near sunset – hence the shift towards blue and lack of brightness (though I could have neutralized these things in processing, I found the contrast on the snow made it easier to see the texture and shapes if I left it as it was).
I didn’t notice too much unusual in the way of birds today, but one thing did stand out – there were three Great Blue Herons flying south over Swan Lake as I started across it. Perhaps they had all been roosting in trees around the lake and were headed to the beach for low tide. There certainly wasn’t any open water for them to fish around the lake.
My primary impression of winters in Sitka is not so much shaped by cold temperatures or the amount of snow that falls, but rather what happens in the days after it snows. When a high pressure from the Yukon pushes over Southeast Alaska, we can get a period of days to even a couple weeks … Read more
There are two primary winter weather patterns that we see in Sitka. When high pressure builds over Canada, it will sometimes spill out over the coast mountains and push into the Gulf of Alaska. Winds are typically out of the North, bringing with them colder temperatures and crystal clear skies, with snow-covered mountains brilliant in … Read more
I was once told by someone originally from Anchorage that it was darker here (in Sitka) in the winter than in Anchorage. My first response was to say that didn’t make any sense – Sitka is significantly further south than Anchorage, and so has more hours of daylight in the winter. In discussing the subject … Read more