A research vessel, Norseman II, was trapped in unusually dense sea ice for 14 days off the Seward Peninsula coast during a Pacific walrus study, but is now en route to Nome for repairs.
On Sunday, Nomeites noticed that their internet wasn’t working and that cell service was spottier than usual. Large fiberoptic line was damaged by sea ice deep underneath the moving sea ice above.
On Sunday night, a plump ringed seal pup was spotted on the ice in front of Breaker’s Bar on Nome’s Front Street. UAF Alaska Sea Grant agent Gay Sheffield was called and moved the pup to a more secluded beach. The ice had likely gone out too fast and the mother finished up the normal weaning process on the ice chunks in front of Nome.
Puddles on ice, slippery sidewalks and heavy wet snow berms are remnants of a three-day weather event that pummeled Nome and the region. According to UAF Climate Specialist Rick Thoman, “that’s the highest three day total on record for Nome in March in the past 116 years.
“This new snow has no name,” said Lars-Anders Kuhmunen, a reindeer herder from Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town, near the Norwegian border. “I don’t know what it is. It is like early tjaevi, which normally comes in March. The winters are warmer now and there is rain, making the ground icy. The snow on top is very bad snow and the reindeer can’t dig for their food.”
The swelling Tom River in southwestern Siberia has led to a partial dam collapse in the city of Tomsk. This year’s heavy rainfall, combined with abnormally warm spring weather, has led to severe flooding in Russia’s Urals and western Siberia. So far, the floods have submerged around 15,600 homes and 28,000 land plots in 193 Russian towns and cities across 33 regions.
Fuel shipments normally take place during autumn from departure ports such as Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. However, last fall saw a sudden freeze-up and quickly accumulating sea-ice on the Northern Sea Route, including the Kara Sea. Of the two rescued barges, one contained 7,000 tons of diesel fuel, while the other was loaded with 170 tons of kerosene.
Loaded with up to 38,000 tons of oil, the 245 meter long tanker Shturman Skuratov makes this year's first transit shipment on the Northern Sea Route. Despite major concentrations of sea-ice, the tanker sails without icebreaker assistance.
Environmentalists say the latest flooding may have sent radioactive substances into the river, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of people living near the banks of the Tobol downstream. State nuclear agency Rosatom, whose subsidiary operates the mines at the Dobrovolnoye uranium deposit, denied that its mining facilities were impacted by the flood.
The mayor of the southern Russian city of Orenburg urged residents to evacuate immediately on Friday as water in the nearby Ural River reached critically dangerous levels and was not expected to recede until next week.
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