The Easter Bunny came a day late this year, which is understandable considering the minimal claim the spring season has made upon the land. While I was making my morning coffee, this fellow came to visit the back yard. He is still in winter color phase, which is the sensible thing, considering how deep the […]
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The local moose usually leave town during the coldest parts of the winter and return in the spring. We often see them in our field, across the street from our house, nibbling at the tips of the tree branches. This year, though, has been no ordinary one. The snow is deeper than usual and the
The University Presbyterian Church is on College Road and I get a clear view of the University of Alaska Fairbanks on my way there. Today, I noticed an unusual structure in the cloud of exhaust coming from the power plant. It is common to see the hot, moisture-laden exhaust rise until it reaches an equilibrium
Recently, local schools have had three snow days, which, in Fairbanks, is sufficiently rare to be worth comment. Contrary to popular belief, schools here don’t close because of cold weather, alone. If they did, the students would have sporadic days off from December to March. The school district usually only closes schools when transportation becomes
In November, I wrote of the pools of water that have collected on top of the biomeiler. They continued to freeze over and melt open as the weather conditions fluctuated. Their presence hinges on how the weather alters the rate at which heat arrives from below and the rate at which it is removed from
Today, it warmed up to 14F. This temperature, although not objectively warm, is so much in contrast to the temperatures of recent weeks that I felt no need for my hat and gloves while running errands around town. The record cold spell that persisted through December and into January now seems to be over. There
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Recently, I had noticed a great many cars and trucks with burned-out headlights and taillights. Soon after, while on an evening errand, I noticed that the illumination from my headlights was asymmetrical. When I parked, I found it was not merely an inconvenient accumulation of ice and snow, but that the driver-side headlight had burned
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My suspicions were confirmed by the radio, this morning: it is unusually cold here, this month. According to the weather service, this has been the coldest month since 2005 and is the coldest December since 1980. When I moved to Fairbanks, in 1990, the winters were much colder than they have been for the last
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It is an annual tradition of mine to take a picture of the Sun at noon on the day of winter solstice. As a consequence of the weather conditions often present in the deep winter, this tradition is “more honored in the breach than in the observance.” I don’t consider it worth the risk of
In our current season, we often have days that are sufficiently overcast to diffuse the Sun’s light to the point that there are no strong shadows or glare from any direction. When the world appears lit without preference for direction, even ordinary sights can be abstracted into novelties. In my video production class I used