A 30 mile ice dam on the Yukon River has the little village of Galena under siege. Most of the 500 residents have been forced to evacuate, as flood waters submerge buildings and lift homes off their foundations.
After several days of 80 degree weather, the front of the massive ice dam has begun to show signs of churning. Once it releases, Koyukuk, which lies downriver, will be the next village at risk of flooding.
Photos courtesy of the National Weather Service
The tripod is still standing on the Tanana River, and we are nearing a record late breakup in the 97 year old Nenana Ice Classic. 20 May 1964 at 11:24am is the current date of the latest breakup. Considering that we are going to see low temps in the teens the next couple of nights, it seems like breaking the record is highly likely.
The pot this year for the Classic is $318,500 for the person(s) who picked the correct date & time of the ice going out.
Photo courtesy of the Nenana Ice Classic “Ice Cam”
Minnesota in May.
The Twin Cities finds itself in a Winter Storm Warning this morning. The general consensus among the weather elite is 6-9″ of snow over the next 24 hours or so. Although, one Gloomy Gus of note, has it at 9-12″.
Really?
What a crazy (so called) spring. The only positive in all this, is that Fairbanks is also getting snow over the next few days. If they were sunny and seeing temps of 50, I would be finding all of this annoyingly ironic.
In what has arguably grown into one of the best rivalries in college sports (notice I did not limit it to hockey), The University of North Dakota visits Mariucci Arena to take on the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers this weekend. Unfortunately, due to the Conference Shuffle that has been going on, this will be the final regular season series between the two schools as WCHA members. In fact, it will be the final meeting between these two programs for several years, barring a meeting in the playoffs. Both schools will be moving on to new hockey conferences after this season.
I’m disappointed to see this bitter rivalry threatened. No doubt, fans of both programs will continue to hate each other with rabid passion, but I’m convinced that the intensity of the MN-NoDak Rivalry will not be sustained after the exodus from the WCHA. I really hope that I’m wrong. Only time will tell.
Still, we have one more to revel in. Minnesota is ranked #1 & NoDak is ranked #6 in the country. Both are tied for third in points in the WCHA, but both are tied for first in Win Percentage. Both teams hate each other, both teams want bragging rights in this final series, and both teams will put on a show.
Standing room only was sold out weeks ago; Mariucci will be rocking. The puck drops at 7 CST Friday & 5 CST Saturday.
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In other hockey news: Congrats to the University of Alabama – Huntsville for being accepted into the WCHA… And congrats to the WCHA for doing the right thing by voting unanimously to add UAH into the conference. I’m glad Bruce listened to me when he was visiting Fairbanks.
It was -50 Sunday morning and -50 again yesterday morning, but luckily it warmed up to -46 this morning. I always love that slight delay filled with silence when you turn the ignition in these temps and are left wondering for that split second if the engine is going to turn over.
My winter moose is back eating all the willows. With the snow up to the level of my little deck, the moose tried to climb aboard last night and found that hooves on snow covered lumber do not go well together. The resulting crash shook the entire cabin.
The sliding hoof marks in the snow dust are still there.
At around 2am I was awaken by the sound of mortar fire and howling sled dogs. Eventually I climbed out of bed and took a peek out a frosty window to see glowing balls of flame shooting up into the night sky. I processed the scene for a moment and came to the conclusion that the moose had jumped a fence and had been caught eating the neighbor’s trees. I stumbled back towards the bed, turning a fan on full-bore as I passed.
Around 3pm this afternoon, I received a phone call, and was asked if I had any fireworks sitting around not being used.
Keep it going in Mariucci; I’d like to hear that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was played Saturday night.
In the meantime, we have #9 Western Michigan in town to face the Nanooks. Hopefully, we’ll see the same Alaska team tonight that beat up on NoDak.
Keep your stick on the ice…
Graphic courtesy of Golden Gopher Hockey
It was -18F this morning, and I received my first frozen pipe call of the season at 8am. My response was “that it wasn’t cold enough yet for frozen pipes. What are you going to do when it drops to -50?”
“Well, you’re going to fix the problem long before it drops that far,” she replied.
Damn.
So I spent much of the morning re-insulating the offending closet with the water lines & wrapping the pipes. I feel like I’m never going to get this siding job finished.
On Friday, when I left the jobsite, the river’s surface water was still flowing, although there was a lot of ice floating along my bank of the river. On Saturday, when I went into work, the river had frozen over.
Alas. It was only a matter of time.
Monday morning, it had dropped to -12 degs when I went out to start the truck. That meant I had to pull out the extension cord and timer to plug the truck in. A good call, since it was -15F this morning.
I believe they call that “additional motivation” to get this final siding job of the season completed.
I started a new siding job yesterday. When the cedar was delivered, the driver chuckled at me and said, “Good luck. I think you have until Friday before the bottom falls out of the thermometer.”
Bastard…
It was 5 degrees this morning when I went to the jobsite. Luckily for me, 5 degrees in Fairbanks isn’t considered low enough to fall out of the bottom.
I do know that the puddles did not thaw at any point during the day, and that the Chena River had ice flowing down it all day long. In fact, in the morning I could hear the mini ice-floes rub against the ice that had formed along the bank.
Kind of depressing when one thinks back on it from a warm cabin with a fire in the woodstove.
I now vaguely recall that yesterday I could see that Ester & Murphy Domes were capped with snow from the storm that dumped rain down here in the flat lands.
On the bright side, we do have the northern lights putting on a show again tonight.
Editor’s Note: According to the Ever Seeing Eye of WordPress, this entry is my 300th post. For some reason that number makes me want to take a trip…
Forty-eight hours ago, The Pond was open water, with only a little icing over in the corners showing up overnight. Twenty-four hours ago, The Pond had a sheen of ice across most of its surface, but it melted over the course of the day. Today, The Pond is frozen over, and I have serious doubts that we will see open water until next April or May.
Welcome to the countdown.
