A lot of people have been asking me if it really gets dark all winter up here. At this latitude we are never in darkness for 24 hours. True, we only get a few hours this time of year but we do get sunlight. Not so for communities farther north like Barrow and Wainwright. I took a picture of the southern horizon at about 11:30 AM so you can see what midday looks like here. The temp was about -19F according to my truck which is fairly accurate.
For some reason the weather forecasts for Galena are often in error when they forecast the high’s and lows for the day. Last night it was supposed to get down to -5F for the low but it was already -18F when we went to bed. Galena sits in a low spot so if the wind isn’t blowing and the sky is clear we can drop several degrees below the temperature in the surrounding communities. I just checked the weather and Galena was showing -21F and Ruby, the next village upriver was at -1F.
So far this year we have had a mild winter. That has really helped with heating oil and firewood consumption. The mild winter has also affected how the river froze up. I have a picture if the Yukon just outside old town. There is a fairly large open hole and the warm water meeting the subzero air causes a large amount of fog. This happens occasionally even in a cold winter. At times the fog will be bad enough to shut down the airport if it obscures part or all of the runway. This makes travel on the river very dangerous when there are open holes like this. We haven’t had a great deal of snow so I haven’t driven my snow machine very much. Mostly just far enough to put it under the house and to the store to top off the gas tank.
School is out for Christmas break so Lynn will be staying home for a while. I will get an opportunity to catch up on some projects at work that are difficult to do while classes are in session.
That’s about all I have for now. Merry Christmas to everyone.