North Pole Weather 5/21/12

Sunrise was at 4:05 this morning, and it will not set until 11:33 tonight for 19 hours 27 minutes above the horizon. The days are beginning to lengthen more slowly; the summer solstice is still a month off but definitely approaching. It’s twilight all night, now, with the sun only getting about 5° below the horizon. In compensation, it’s now more than 45° high at noon. Still not quite reliably above freezing at night, but I’ve started leaving the hardening plants out, under floating row covers. Froecast next week are for low 30′s at the coldest, so I’m going to start getting the rest of the transplants out (at least in the daytime) and start planting as soon as the rototilling is done.

The lilacs are budded out enough I can tell which branches are dead and prune them away, something they’ve needed for several years. To my surprise many of the “dead” branches had side shoots with live buds, so I didn’t have to remove as much as I thought I would. The Amur maple needs the same treatment, but the buds aren’t quite large enough yet to be sure which branches are actually dead. You can tell it’s an import – the wild roses are well leafed out, the balsam poplars are shedding their sticky bud covers, and the rhubarb is almost ready to cut lightly. The white violets are actually blooming next to the house, and a number of perennials have new leaves.

It’s Haiku day on the blogathon, so I thought I’d put in a link to a haiku I posted earlier.

#WriteMotivation Check-in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

Seeds and some transplants are waiting on getting the rototilling done, but the beds are fertilized, have soil amendment added, and ready to till. Hoops and plastic are ready.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday.

Fine so far.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

Fine so far.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

Fine so far.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

I’m going to have to count the time I spend at the Farmers Market. I’ve been working on the garden, but haven’t dared take any long trike rides as I never know when the rototiller and/or handyman will get here. I hope that’s out of the way soon; I’m running out of things to do in the garden and yard until the rototilling is done.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

I’ve read it over, the Six Sentence Sunday posts are scheduled for the rest of the month, and I think I have one beta reader.

Farmers’ Market: Fairbanks, Alaska

The Tanana Valley Farmers Market is open!

Writers’ Guild booth

Not for produce – even the greenhouses aren’t producing anything but plants yet. And it’s cold – only a few degrees above freezing when the market opened. But there were lots of seedlings, potted perennial plants. and shrubs. Handmade jewelry, quilted and knitted items, local yarns and hand-decorated clothing were interspersed with jams and jellies, baked goods and candy. Food stalls were doing some business, though many people did not realize the market was open yet, or were attending the parade downtown. (Usually it’s quite a wait in line to get in to the more popular stalls.) Wood items varied from hand-turned bowls to furniture to birdhouses, and ceramics were also on display. And this year the Fairbanks branch of the Alaska Writers’ Guild has a table set up in the indoor part of the market.

Hand decorated clothing

So far we have three authors and six books, but we’re hoping to get more. The authors take turns running the booth – there isn’t really room for more than one person at a time. We’re still working out the schedule, but I hope it will be half days – a full day is a bit much, especially as the building is unheated.

I was shopping as well as selling books, and came home with several basil plants and some pear butter – from Alaska-grown pears, no less! I knew crab apples and lots of berries grew up here, but I have to say the pears surprised me. I’ll have to find out the variety, though I suspect they’re grown in a very favorable location.

Food stalls. The photo was taken while most people were downtown watching the parade. There are picnic tables behind the row of stalls.

If you happen to be in Fairbanks over the summer, come by the Farmers’ Market. It’s on the red and blue line bus routes, and it’s open Saturday 9-4, and Wednesday 11-4. Sundays 11-4 will be added at the end of the month, but only the outdoor canopies are used for that. Not good for selling books.

I don’t know for sure that it’s the farthest North Farmers’ Market in the 50 states, but it must be close to it!

North Pole Weather 5/14/12

Sign of Spring!

The sun rose this morning at 4:29 am, and will set at 11:08 for 18 hours 39 minutes of daylight – that is, with the sun above the horizon. In fact it doesn’t really get dark this time of year, and in two more days it’ll be civil twilight all “night,” with the sun never getting more than 6° below the horizon. The problem with astronomy up here is that when it gets dark enough to see the stars, it’s too cold to say outdoors very long.

The birch pollen count was high last week, and official greenup was May 10. Official? It’s based on when Chena Ridge, west of town, starts looking green instead of brown, and the day is identified by a local weather forecaster – but it’s a pretty obvious change, if you can see the ridge. I can’t, but midweek the birch leaves were showing in my yard, and today there’s a definite green mist to them. What’s more, the ground was thawed enough to till – I was able to get a spading fork in to full depth by Wednesday night.

A green mist is showing on the birches.

The weather forecasts for the rest of the week suggest nightly frosts are still possible, so I won’t even consider planting anything yet. The flats of plants are still going out as soon as the temperature is above 35°F and coming in before I go to bed. I’m certainly going to try to get someone to do the rototilling soon, though.

#WriteMotivation check in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

On schedule, but waiting for rototilling.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday.

Fine so far.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

Also up to date.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

Barely made it Sunday, but no problem the rest of the week.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

The weather is intermittent showers—not heavy, but I’ve been chased in several times from the garden, and I don’t want to risk getting wet miles from home—it’s still too cold! I’d say I’ve made it given that I specified “when the weather cooperates.”.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

Done, but I still would like to find a beta reader. Any volunteers?

North Pole Weather, 5/7/12

The sun rose this morning at 4:54, and it won’t set until 10:44 this evening for 17 hours 50 minutes of daylight. We’re still gaining about 7 minutes a day. The real daylight, if you include civil twilight, is even longer – civil twilight ends after midnight, at 12:07 in the morning, and begins again at 3:27. Yes, that means it’s still pretty light at bedtime. Even at solar midnight the sky is dark blue rather than black, and the super moon Saturday night never rose above the trees to the south.

Beans and herbs hardening off.

It’s warming fast, though nighttime frosts are still more likely than not. The beans have not only sprouted, they are growing so fast I’ve started putting them outdoors during the daytime. We’ve even had our first thunder of the season — earliest in 27 years.

#Writemotivation Check in:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, I’ll try to get the beans started indoors by April 25 and the squash by April 30; plant outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

Far too early to plant anything (it’s still freezing at night) but the beans are up and hardening, the squash is beginning to sprout, and I made the hoops yesterday.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my sf novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday Sunday. http://homecomingbook.wordpress.com/

So far so good.

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

So far so good, also.

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page

Almost didn’t make it yesterday, but so far I’ve kept up.

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

This past week the weather hasn’t cooperated much, but I’ve done at least an hour a day (usually two) on the stationary bike and/or rowing machine.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible.

I’ve read through it once; still need a beta reader. Any takers?

North Pole Weather, 4/30/12

The sun rose this morning at 5:19, and will not set until 10:20 this evening. We’re on daylight time, but I’m not really sure why – we certainly have no shortage of daylight! 17 hours today, and we’re gaining about 7 minutes a day. Solar altitude at noon has crossed the 40° mark, most of the snow has melted, and I’m putting the mints out to harden in the daytime. But at the darkest time of night the sun is only a little more than 10° below the horizon.

Violets and delphinium are popping up next to the south wall of the house.

The forecast is for quite a bit cooler this week, with rain and snow possible. I hope the snow doesn’t stick! I’ll probably get out the hose today, but I certainly won’t leave it hooked up at night.

I’m doing the #writemotivation check-in again this month, with a longer list of goals now OLLI is over until fall. My goals aren’t all writing this time either. Specifically:

1. Get the garden going. Given the earlier springs up here lately, the beans have started to sprout (indoors) and I’ll try to get the squash planted today if I can find pots; plant both outdoors before Memorial Day. Get seeds in before Memorial Day if possible. This will involve getting the hoops to support plastic covers up on all three raised beds.

The chives in the holes in the cement blocks making up the raised beds have reached eating height already, though we're still having hard freezes at night.

2. Keep up daily blogging using my existing schedule: Alaska weather Monday, review Tuesday, quotation context Wednesday, wild card Thursday, Jarn’s Journal (back history on my science fiction novels) Friday, Science/technology/health Saturday, and Six Sentence Sunday on Sunday. http://homecomingbook.wordpress.com/

3. Keep up Context? Tweets daily @sueannbowling

4. Put at least two interesting science links a day on Homecoming’s page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homecoming/109303925759274

5. Get outdoors for at least a couple of hours a day when the weather cooperates, either gardening or tricycle riding.

6. Read over entire trilogy for flow; put bits on Six Sentence Sunday; find a beta reader or two if possible. Anyone interested?

North Pole Weather 4/23/12

The snow is melting rapidly, the path to the shed is shoveled, and the tricycle is out – I rode about a mile yesterday. We’re forecast to have highs in the 50’s next week, though it’s still below freezing at night and could be below zero. I’m going to plant the beans (indoors) this week. Spring is coming!

It’s light almost all the time I’m awake, now – sunrise today was 5:44 in the morning, and it won’t set until 9:56 this evening for 16 hours 12 minutes of daylight, almost 7 minutes more than yesterday. The closed car now gets so hot I’ve turned on the air conditioning. We only have a couple more days of nautical night – starting April 25 the sun will never dip more than 12° below the horizon.

Pussy willows are out, and I took a few pictures from the trike. The weeds are turning green (aren’t they always the first?) and I’ve spotted new growth on delphiniums, violets, columbine, and hardy geraniums against the house even though I haven’t raked the leaf mulch out yet. Chives are showing green, too, with a nice onion flavor. It’s far too early for rototilling – there are still patches of snow in the garden, and I’m sure it’s still frozen solid, but I’ve started visiting the commercial greenhouses. Plant Kingdom had a good assortment of mints, and I bought 11, but my favorite (Corsican mint) wasn’t there. Don’t know why it’s so hard to get hold of. Maybe they’ll have it at one of the three I haven’t been to yet.

Ice Jam Floods

When do you expect flooding?

It depends very much on where you are, of course, and what causes the flooding. Here in interior Alaska we have two flood seasons, with two quite different mechanisms, and we’re starting into one of them now, at the driest time of the year.

Yes, April is our driest month and May, while a little wetter, is the second driest month with temperatures above freezing. So why flooding now? Why not in the rainiest month, August, which did produce the great Fairbanks Flood of 1967?

Two words: ice jams.

We’re already getting some information on river breakup and flood warnings. In fact, there is an ice jam flood advisory on the Tanana River near the mouth of the Salcha (upstream of Fairbanks) today and tomorrow. Most of the rivers in Alaska run from highlands with snow — lots of snow — in the winter months to coasts that during the spring are a lot colder than the interior where the snow is melting under the sun. The snow melts and the meltwater runs into the river while the lower reaches of the river are still frozen. As the river rises and the sun weakens the ice that has covered it over the winter, the ice breaks into chunks and slabs and begins to flow with the river. It used to be axiomatic that rivers could not be crossed, and bridges were often swept away, during breakup, when the ice is carried downriver. When I came to Fairbanks it was still a possibility that the last car of the year over the ice bridge across the Chena River would go through the ice. The great gambling event of the Alaskan Spring is the Nenana Ice Pool – wagering on the exact day, hour, and minute that the ice will go out at Nenana, Alaska.

But all that ice moving downriver can cause problems, too. It’s not wimpy, thin ice; the ice at Nenana is over 2’ thick today, and while it’s thinned from is original 3 ½ feet, it still makes big chunks. If it piles up, as may happen at a different place every year, the flow of water is severely impeded, and the water spreads out over the adjacent land. Rivers in Alaska are transportation corridors – not only for boats in the summer, but for dog teams and snow machines in the winter. Consequently most of the older settlements in Alaska are on this precursor to our skimpy road net, and they almost expect to be flooded in spring. Fuel lines and tanks must be tied down, as must boardwalks, lest they float off. Belongings are put up high. I expect the public service announcements warning residents to prepare for flooding to start soon.

By the way, notice that our wettest month has an average precipitation of under 2″, and the annual total is only 10.31″. In terms of total precipitation, I live in a desert.

North Pole Weather, 4/16/12

Sunrise this morning was 6:10 pm, with sunset not until 9:33 this afternoon for 15 hours 23 minutes of daylight. We’re still gaining almost 7 minutes a day, but the snow, while pretty wet lately, is far from gone. The snow stake shows just under a foot still on the ground. There’s been enough melting that the path to the shed (and the tricycle) is impossible to shovel – it’s ice. Too bad, as they’ve plowed the bicycle path, though the tenth of a mile of dirt road to get to it is a horrible mixture of mud, ice, and potholes. But the edges of the raised beds are poking out of the snow, and at this rate I’ll be able to see the soil in the beds beds themselves pretty soon. It was actually above freezing this morning at 7 am.

I’ve started wearing my athletic shoes when I go anywhere, just tossing the boots in the car in case I encounter ice. I’m actually getting to attend evening functions, like The Stoned Guest (P.D.Q. Bach) Friday night. I need to start the beans next week, and the squash the week after that. Time to start visiting the greenhouses, too – I rely on them for culinary herb plants and flowers.

If only I weren’t so busy with OLLI classes this month! Northern vegetation changes and archaeological science Monday, iPhoto and digital photography Wednesday, astrophysics Friday, and a weekend workshop on fiction writing at the beginning of next month. Hope I can remember to keep the plants watered!

p.s. at 4 pm: temperature +57°F and I had to take off my jacket and turn on the air conditioning driving home! Still plenty of snow, though — the snow stake says 8″, though lots of bare ground, as well as mud and puddles,  are showing.

Breakup Season

The usual four seasons, especially as defined by the equinoxes and solstices, don’t work very well for interior Alaska. Show cover is generally established by a month after the autumnal equinox, and stays on the ground until well after the vernal equinox. Rivers freeze a little later and remain frozen longer in the spring, and the only running water for six months of the year is in hot springs and indoors. But there is one season that everyone both longs for and dreads: Breakup.

Breakup is the time of year when snow melts and rivers thaw. The two are connected by more than sunshine and warmer weather. Melting snow makes mud (one of the reasons breakup is a time of some dread) but it also runs into rivers. If the water rises in the upper stretches of a river before lower reaches are thawed, as often happens in Alaska, the result can be ice jams and resultant flooding. I’ll talk about that some other time, but right now I want to discuss the simple process of melting snow.

Clean snow reflects most of the solar energy that strikes it. Some of the sun’s rays are absorbed within the snow pack, and cause internal melting and settling — but this is a slow process. Even clean snow, however, is a very good absorber in thermal infrared wavelengths. The sun doesn’t put out much energy in these wavelengths, but buildings, trees, and just about everything else except polished metal does. As a result, snow near the south side of a building melts much faster than snow out in the open. So does snow near tree trunks.

I see this every year. In addition to the photo of my road, which is rapidly turning into mud, I took two of the north and south yards of my house, minutes apart. Both areas got almost exactly the same amount of snow, and both have very similar exposure to sunlight. The snow stake still has a good 18” of snow. The ground around the birch is almost bare.

Why? Two reasons, actually, and the combination explains why open birch forest is usually the first natural area free of snow around here. First, birch trees hold their seeds through winter, and drop them shortly before breakup. As a result the seeds on the snow around the tree absorb the solar radiation and transfer that energy to the snow, speeding its melt. Natural selection? Quite possibly. It certainly seems likely that the enhanced snow melt, leading to earlier warming of the ground, would help the tree.

Second, the tree itself absorbs some solar energy, and then re-radiates it to the snow in the form of thermal infrared. Just about any object poking through the snow this time of year has a little depression around it. Spruce trees do an even better job of absorbing sunlight than do birches, but they also shade the ground and transfer much of the energy they absorb directly to the air. As a result spruce forest, while it probably does a better job of warming the air than birch forest, is among the last areas to have completely bare ground.

On a different note entirely, one of the fixtures of breakup in Fairbanks is the Beat Beethoven 5 km race, a fundraiser held today for and by the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra. I won’t be running this year, though I did “run” with a cane once — and came in last. The idea is to cover the 5 km before the end of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, about 30 minutes. I’m volunteering this year to park my car along the race route with the radio tuned to 91.5 (KSUA, the campus radio station) blaring out Beethoven’s 5th. I expect temperatures below 50°F and much of the course to be slippery or wet!

Added later (after the race.) This is definitely a family race. There were parents pushing their children in strollers, parents with children in backpacks or riding piggyback, dogs, and one contestant on crutches. (And she wasn’t at the end, either.) I did have a bit of a problem in that instruction to volunteers said if possible, not to have your car idling as the runner went by. I did. And needed a jump to start the car after the battery totally discharged itself.

North Pole Weather 4/9/12

Snow stake the afternoon of April 8. Comparison with last week's will show how slowly clean snow is melting. (No, we haven't had any additional snow.)

The sun rose at 6:36 this morning and will set at 9:08 this evening, for 14 hours 35 minutes of daylight — we’re still gaining 6 min 48 seconds a day. We’re paying for it, though, as it never gets completely dark at night. The sun never dips more than 18° below the horizon, so while it’s probably darker than most of North America (minor street light pollution) it never quite reaches astronomical night. The stars come out, but we can’t see the faintest ones. (I can’t anyway, so I have to say the only personal effect on me is the longer evenings.)

Breakup has definitely arrived. The white ice on streets and parking lots is either soft enough that tires sink in, or has been replaced by pools of water. Since the ground is generally colder than the sun-heated surface, drainage culverts are full of ice and the parking lots, especially those with dips, become ponds. The steam thawing trucks will be out soon, though I haven’t seen any yet.

Clean snow is sagging from internal melt. I’ve been watching the snow sag against the snow stake. It’s down to about 21” now, but it seems an awfully slow process. Darkened areas, or those next to something like a tree or wall, are melting much faster. I have bare patches showing where I had several inches of white ice in the driveway, and shrubs that were surrounded by tents of snow are now the focus of hollows.

Speaking of those nice long evenings, I’m planning to attend the opera this coming Friday. Yes, in Fairbanks Alaska. Opera Fairbanks, which bills itself as the farthest North professional opera company, is having a fund-raiser with P.D.Q. Bach’s The Stoned Guest and desserts. (Hooray for an insulin pump—though I don’t do this sort of thing very often.) It’s only a half act, and starts at 7, so I should be able to drive home. Sunset that day will be almost 9:30 in the evening. What, you’ve never heard of P.D.Q Bach? (1807-1742) Suffice it to say I expect all kinds of musical jokes.