Just this month, more than 23 inches of snow have fallen in Anchorage, 17.5 inches above normal. A weekend storm clogged Anchorage streets, creating hazardous road conditions. The Anchorage School District closed school buildings and canceled after-school activities, calling a remote learning day.
Road crews say they’re still working to fully carve out the streets and haul snow away, after the city was hit with a trio of major storms this month. Some of Anchorage’s roads are maintained by the state of Alaska, and others by the city.
Anchorage and Mat-Su Borough schools and state offices are closed Thursday as a third major winter storm this month coated the area with snow overnight Wednesday. “In the past 11 days, we’ve had 41.1 inches of snow which is a lot for Anchorage,” Baines said.
All schools in Anchorage and the Mat-Su Borough are closed Wednesday due to slick roads across the region, as snowfall continues. “This is the heaviest snowfall the Anchorage area has seen in over 20 years,” said state Department of Transportation spokesman Justin Shelby. “Our crews are keeping up as best they can.”
Anchorage has already seen nearly 4 inches of rain so far this month, the weather service says.
The landslide, estimated to be 300 feet wide, has completely cut off the community of Lowell Point. Lowell Point Road is the only land access between Lowell Point and the City of Seward. As a result the City of Seward cannot access critical wastewater facilities.
Auto shops are seeing more business because of damaged tires, and drivers are often inching through a messy maze of bad road conditions. Road crews are making headway but still catching up from unfavorable weather last month.
A storm that hit Southcentral Alaska on Saturday night led to flooding in Girdwood, a landslide on the Sterling Highway and left thousands of homes without power throughout the region on Sunday morning. More than a foot of rain fell in Girdwood by Sunday.
"The first snowfall of this year happened so early that the leaves on the trees had not fallen yet. The weight of the snow on top of the trees that had not shed their leaves caused the trees to incur damage."
For skiers and snowboarders looking for snowy fun within designated ski areas in Alaska, some spots have already extended their seasons.
The snowfall came after Anchorage broke the daily record for warmest Dec. 31, with temperatures at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport measuring 46 degrees.
The city is so parched and hot that even a cigarette tossed into a pile of fluffy cottonwood fiber could ignite a fire.
The storm that walloped Southcentral Alaska also left about 32 inches of snow in Moose Pass and 30 in Seward.
About 30 people were evacuated from an Anchorage apartment building following flash flooding that stranded cars and shut down some Anchorage streets Saturday night.
A band of wet, warm weather barreled into Southcentral Alaska on Friday and stirred up an odd blend of high winds, slushy roads and even rainbow sightings.
Rain overnight in Anchorage pushed the number of consecutive rainy days in the city to 18 -- tying a record set in September 1919, the National Weather Service reports.
For the second year in a row, the Anchorage area set a new snowfall record. This year it wasn’t the amount of fluffy stuff that went down in the history books — last year Anchorage had more than 11 feet — but the days between the first and last snowfall.
To say Alaska has been snowy this winter is an understatement. Anchorage broke a 57 year old snowfall record Saturday when a storm produced 4.3 inches of snow on Saturday, April 7, 2012.
“This has been a very trying time,” mother Tanisha Charles said. “You don’t prepare for this. You think of fires, you think of earthquakes, but you never think of a mudslide in the middle of town.”
The incidents happened after another bout of heavy snow, and as municipal building officials mailed out warnings to owners that their buildings could be at risk.
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