Arrival of winter season as unpredictable as summer

MAT-SU — Temperatures around the Mat-Su Valley are steadily creeping south, but snow is still a way off, according to the National Weather Service.

As leaves begin falling off trees and the snow line creeps farther down the mountains, many residents are keeping a watchful eye to the sky for that first flake of white stuff.

Monday morning at Mr. Lube in Wasilla, cars began lining up to change over tires, from summer sets to winter studs, perhaps a reaction to reports of the area’s first frost Sunday night.

But the chilliest weather could still be a few weeks away.

David Vonderheide, a forecaster at the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office, said Palmer and Wasilla have largely been spared temperatures in the lower 30s because of thick cloud cover acting as an insulator. If the current weather pattern shifts and clouds blow out of the Valley, Vonderheide said the area’s temperatures will plummet.

“Welcome to fall,” Vonderheide said, adding Monday marked the Fall Equinox.

Across the Valley Monday, Vonderheide said there were pockets of temperatures in the low 30s. Wasilla Airport was at 30, which was the same as reported at the Willow air strip.

While some people are predicting an early, harsh winter because of a cooler-than-usual summer, Vonderheide said so far everything is holding pace with normalcy.

“Right now everything seems pretty typical,” he said.

Farther away from the Valley’s core area at Sheep Mountain Lodge, workers awoke Monday to about half an inch of snow on the ground.

“It’s gone now,” lodge worker Becky Geist said midmorning. Geist said temperatures at the lodge have hovered in the upper 30s and the snow line is getting lower on the mountains.

For Geist, the coming winter is a welcome change; however, she said many of her co-workers think they’ve been cheated out of summer.

“I think most people are kind of dreading it,” she said of the upcoming winter season.

In Talkeetna, the clouds broke Monday and Denali peeked out.

“It’s a beautiful day in Talkeetna,” K2 Aviation office manager Kristy Kingery said.

Kingery said the town hit freezing Sunday night, although there wasn’t any real frost on the ground.

Monday’s sunny weather was a welcome surprise after a summer of skies largely occupied by gray clouds. But anyone who’s lived in Alaska long enough knows predicting the weather is often a difficult task.

Vonderheide, a professional weather forecaster, said it’s anybody’s guess just what will happen this winter. The official winter outlook for the state doesn’t come out until around Thanksgiving, and by the middle to end of November, weather patterns tend to get locked in place.

That said, there are some factors that might give a clue as to what winter will hold, Vonderheide said. Colder-than-usual water temperatures in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska might impact winter weather. Unusual solar activity resulting in a lack of sunspots is causing some experts to predict colder weather. Also, a phenomena called Pacific decadal oscillation, which lasts for decades, can produce cooler-than-usual temperatures.

Regardless of what the science says, Vonderheide concedes it’s up to Mother Nature to ultimately decide what’s going to happen with weather this winter. “Will we get one kind of trend this winter, or will it stay variable?”

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