Photo on 2014-02-01 at 22Spring’s approaching! The sun will rise at 9:29 this morning and set a whole 7 hours 12 minutes later at 4:41 this afternoon. We’re gaining a fairly steady 5 ¾ minutes a day in day length. We’re not going to get over winter immediately or even in six weeks, though, no matter what Punxsutawney Phil says. In fifty years up here, I’ve never seen the snow start to melt seriously by the middle of March. Not that it hasn’t been warm for Alaska: we were 15.5°F above normal for January.

The forecast is for above normal temperatures continuing, but that does not mean above freezing, or even above zero, though subzero highs are not forecast until next weekend. Still, I worry a little about that ridge in the jet stream in last night’s forecast. If it continues to move west and locks in over the Bering Strait, we could get 40 below or colder.

Lots of seed catalogs, and my hair is indeed coming in curly at least for the moment, though I don’t expect it to last.