The temperature at the
time I took the photos was -11 C. The snow depth (an average of 3 samples
taken in undisturbed snow near the site) was 480 mm.
We have had a wide range of weather during the last 30 days. Mid-day on 14
January, the temperature had warmed to 0 C and it started to rain. I was
not able to measure the exact amount that fell at our house, but the
official report for the Fairbanks area was .10" (2.54 mm) of rain. However,
it soon became cooler and the rain changed to snow so by the next morning
we had about 50 mm of snow on top of the icy surface, where the rain had
frozen to the ground. This made traveling much safer since the snow
provided more traction than the ice underneath. The warm temperatures on
the 14th caused the snow that had accumulated on our roof to slide off,
crashing onto the ground - something that normally does not happen until
April. Then, the weather cooled down to more seasonal temperatures but
within about 10 days of the rain, the temperature dropped over 35 degrees C
so that by 25 January we had temperatures of between -35 to -45 C. Quite a
lot of variation!
Due to the warm weather and rain, I am sure our snow pack compressed quite
a bit, otherwise the 480 mm I noted above would probably have been much
deeper.
We are noticing a dramatic increase in day length since we are gaining
about 7 minutes of daylight a day now. The sun rose today at 9:32 am and
will set at 4:39 pm, giving us a total day length of 7 hours 7 minutes. By
the end of February, we will have very nearly 10 hours of daylight per day!
