Photo taken Monday morning, May 11, 2020

People from Outside are often amazed at how short the “transition” seasons are in Interior Alaska.  Often, spring and autumn seem like they are only days long.

Spring is especially quick to show itself in Fairbanks.  Our trees literally go from brown twigs to green leaves in a matter of hours.  On Sunday morning, the hillsides were a drab gray and brown, by afternoon, they were a vibrant green.

A pollen scientist by the name of Jim Anderson, working for the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, starting logging the official Greenup Day in 1974.  He continued to do so until his death in 2007.  Ted Fathauer, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fairbanks, independently did the same thing from his place on Chena Ridge.  Fathauer died in 2013.*

Current meteorologist, Rick Thoman, has taken up the green lantern, and called Mother’s Day as the official Greenup Day of 2020.

When I say that there is nothing gradual about the leaves coming out in Alaska’s Interior, I’m not kidding.  It is a sudden burst of green that immediately overtakes the land.  It doesn’t come in the form of a wave, it just comes, all at once.  Our days are over 18 hours long now, and the amount of visible light is closing in on 22 hours.  That’s a lot of photosynthesis power.

*Dermot Cole: Reporting from Alaska