More Dogs...

On Saturday my friend Bill came over and we ran our dog teams out in the valley. Not something we do often, the last time was maybe 2-3 years ago, but it's good training for the dogs.

Taking a break on the way back home. The dogs can get pretty excited running with another team, so  they get longer  rest stops to help them settle down.

Then today we got another dog, a yearling male from a kennel in Nenana. Turns out he arrived on our anniversary, so thanks dear!

Weird Temps...

One of the things I've gotten in the habit of doing before heading outside is checking the local weather. Since the NWS site at the airport is about twenty miles away, I've been using the USGS site at the Little Chena bridge on the Hot Springs Road, which is just a couple of miles down the road.  Primarily a hydrometric site, in the winter it's only reporting air temperature (https://waterdata.usgs.gov/ak/nwis/uv/?site_no=15511000).

The idea here is that in the winter, it's a lot colder down in the "frozen flats" due to low temperature inversions, so that the relatively warmer temperatures at our house in the hills don't always reflect what's going on in the valley (New Years 1/2/18). 

But this year it didn't seem so obvious, so I got the idea of plotting up a graph of the minimum temps at the Little Chena site, the NWS airport site, and at our place at 10 mile in the hills to see how they'd compare. While the Little Chena was similar to the airport when it was real cold, the temps were closer to the hills in milder weather. Kind of surprising, but that's science for you, you really don't know until you look at the data, and even then sometimes you still don't know what's going on!

Here's the updated chart of the temperature data through March 1; if nothing else it's interesting to see the wild temp swings we're getting this winter. 

Also plotted up the max temps from Dec 1 to Mar 1. Not sure if it adds much, except that the high temps are a lot closer together at all sites than the low temps.

Another fine day...

After a week of snow, when we got about a foot in three days, spent most of my time plowing, so it was a relief to finally get out and relax with a dog run.

With all the snow and rain this winter, it's kind of amazing the weird ice/snow formations. Never seen a snow turban on a spruce tree before. Or maybe it looks like an old fashioned street light? Anyway don't let Trump know, he'll have ICE up here investigating muslims radicalizing the black spruce forest!

While it's cooled off a bit since we got all the snow, it still seems hot for the fuzzier dogs.

After we make the last turn and head for home, the dogs really pick up the pace. It's always amazing how they respond, they're really born to run.

February rocks...

For the first time since mid January, it's gotten above zero.  So had to celebrate with a dog run.

Putting Little Missy back up front with Jabba in hopes she'll improve her lead dog skills. We'll see how that works out!

Logged out...

When we dropped a dead aspen tree last fall (Aspen Errors, Part Duce 10/6/17) one log remained stuck between the double birch tree that had protected the greenhouse. Tried to lever it out with a  pry bar and knock it out with a sledge, but both proved futile. Figured I'd need to cut down at least one of the birch trees, but then got the idea of pulling it loose with a come-along.  I wasn't sure it'd work. but still figured it was worth a try. Hooked the come-along up to another birch about thirty feet away and cranked it tight. At first it didn't budge, so got the maul and gave the log a few whacks. Of course all the snow in the birch trees cascaded down so I looked like the abominable snowman. But the log moved a bit and that gave me hope. So reset the come-along and cranked it tight again. This time the log moved a little more with each whack until it finally popped out of the notch between the trees. I guess it's the little successes that make life interesting.

Once the the tension was tight enough, the log popped out of the notch with a few whacks of the maul. I didn't take a picture at the start cause  I didn't really expect it to work. There's a photo of the log stuck in the notch at Chillin' out...(1/21/18).

January Weather Summary...

The ever popular NWS summary:
January 2018 was warmer and snowier than normal in the Fairbanks area. The mean temperature of 6.0 below was 1.9 degrees above the normal of 7.9 below and ranked as the 42nd warmest of 110 years of record.

The highest temperature was 33 degrees above which occurred on the 17th. The lowest temperature was 33 below which occurred on 26th and 29th and is the coldest temperature recorded at the Fairbanks Airport this season.

14.1 inches of snow fell at the Fairbanks Airport which is 3.8 inches above the normal January snowfall of 10.3 inches and ranked as the 17th snowiest January of 109 years of record. The
heaviest 24 hour snowfall occurred on the 17th when 6.1 inches of wet and heavy snow fell in a narrow band over the west side of Fairbanks. Both rain and snow fell and made for difficult travel
conditions as the rain fell and then froze on cold road surfaces. 1.10 inches of precipitation fell in fairbanks during the month of January which was 0.52 inches above the normal precipitation of 0.58 inches. For the 2017 to 2018 snowfall season 50.9 inches of snow has fallen at the Fairbanks Airport which is 2.7 inches above the normal season to date.

Looking forward to February the climatologically coldest part of the winter is now behind us and available day light continues to increase at nearly seven minutes per day. A noticeable diurnal
temperature range will again be felt especially by the end of the month. The average temperature increases from 7 below on the 1st to 4 degrees above on the 28th. Temperature extremes have ranged from 50 above in 1943 to 58 below in 1947 and 1993. The normal precipitation for February is 0.42 inches. The average snowfall in February is 8.1 inches. Available sunshine increases from six hours and 59 minutes on the 1st to 10 hours and 2 minutes on the 28th.

The outlook for Fairbanks for February from the Climate Prediction Center calls for near normal temperatures and  precipitation.

Chart from Alaska Climate Research Center

Well January had a little bit of everything, snow, rain, ice storms, warm and cold temps, but still no 40 below, so that's something I guess. Now looking forward to the longer and warmer days, but I hope not too much warmer weather, that's soon to come. It's the best time of the year up here!