Mat-Su weathers cooler season

HATCHER PASS — Frank Ducceschi sat on a bench near a pile of snow in the Independence Mine State Historical Park Monday, jacket partially unzipped, eyes squinting in the sun.

As his two young grandchildren played around him, the Washington resident said a late-arriving summer and cloudy conditions in the Mat-Su Valley haven’t ruined his vacation.

“It didn’t seem too bad,” Ducceschi said.

Gray skies should be around for longer than most would like after another weather system moves in this week, a forecaster for the National Weather Service said Monday.

Andy Brown, a lead forecaster for the NWS in Anchorage, said clouds could break today, but by tomorrow another round of atmospheric disturbances should bring them right back.

“We have a really strong temperature inversion that’s keeping these clouds in,” Brown said.

Gloomy weather seems to be centered mostly on the Palmer and Wasilla area, Brown said. Go east toward Sheep Mountain and Eureka, and Brown said it’s “beautiful. It’s just hanging in Anchorage and up in the Valley.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, and Becky Geist, a breakfast cook at Sheep Mountain Lodge, said summer has yet to take hold in that part of the Mat-Su Borough.

“The past few days we’ve been fogged in ‘till noon, then it starts to lift,” Geist said.

She said clouds have broken around the lodge over the past few days, letting the sun shine, but temperatures just aren’t rising fast. Geist said she has yet to take a temperature reading above 60 so far this summer. Sheep Mountain Lodge has a contract with the National Weather Service to make observations every hour.

“I think it’s been a cool summer pretty much everywhere,” Geist said. “Up here, we’re waiting patiently for it to warm up.”

In Talkeetna, Garett Lawrence, an employee at K2 Aviation, said clouds have been making for some dreary days in the small town.

“The clouds are really thick,” Lawrence said.

For the past week, Lawrence said K2 planes have been forced to wait until around 3 p.m. to take tours out. That’s about the time when the clouds seem to burn off around the range, letting the mountain show through.

“There’s been a number of days up here when it’s been really nice up in the range,” Lawrence said.

At Hatcher Pass, winter finally seems to be releasing its icy grip from the high altitude playground.

Charlene Vaughan, an employee with the Alaska Conservation Corps working at Independence Mine, said she’s surprised at the time it’s taken for warmer temperatures to reach the area.

“This past year, it’s been really cool up here,” Vaughan said.

From her observations, Vaughan said it seems days begin cloudy and usually clear out in the afternoon. As she spoke Monday around noon, the clouds above Hatcher Pass began to thin out.

But where last year Vaughan said green vegetation and dry paths could be found by this time of year, snow still lingers.

Snow is still 1 to 2 feet deep in some places in Hatcher Pass, said Chris Coughenour, a volunteer tour guide at Independence Mine State Historical Park.

“We have a temperature gauge out here,” Coughenour said. “It’s been hanging in the high 30s, low 40s with 100 percent humidity.”

Nevertheless, Vaughan said since the mine officially opened for tours Saturday, tourists and other hikers have been braving the cooler-than-normal weather. Nearly 650 people showed up at the mine on its opening day.

But according to National Weather Service forecasts, it looks like locals and tourists will have to get used to a cloudy summer for a while longer.

“We’ll see some breaks, possibly,” Brown said. “But nothing that’s going to clear us out for the long term.”

Clouds don’t matter to Vaughan. The 18-year Alaska resident said the state’s beauty makes up for the fickle weather.

“The weather, it’s ... well, it’s under the weather,” Vaughan said.

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com       or 352-2252.