North Pole Weather, 10/22/12

The sun rose this morning at 9:08 am, and will set at 6:01 this evening for eight hours fifty-three minutes of daylight: 6 minutes and 43 seconds less than yesterday. Looks like we have the start of our winter snow cover, with temperatures generally in the 20’s for the daily high and near 0°F overnight. So far, the snow is barely deep enough to cover the grass.

Roads in town have enough packed snow to be slick—I went through one stop sign where I fully intended to stop. No traffic, luckily, and I was a little more cautious from them on. Even anti-lock brakes will skid on the kind of roads we have right now. One thing rarely mentioned: road markings painted on the roads and parking lot lanes are completely covered by white ice. Lane markings for turn-only lanes or pedestrian crossings are invisible.

The sun is now quite low in the sky, as you can see from the series below. The photo at the top was sunrise yesterday; the three at the bottom are around 11 am, 2 pm (solar noon) and sunset.

8:10 am update: we have now had our first official subzero (F) temperature of the season. My thermometer reads -6°F. The sky is barely starting to lighten.