Looking seaward over the last week from almost all points along the coasts of Norton Sound, folks have been dazzled by bright blue horizons colored by open water.
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.
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.
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.
Stormy weather stalled a search and rescue effort on Monday for a man from White Mountain, whose 4-wheeler broke through thin ice at the edge of Golovin Bay on Sunday.
Back-to-back blizzards with tons of snow and high winds have hammered Nome since late January and the accumulation of a total of 76 inches of snow is now beginning to take a toll on residents.
Last week, a 908-foot Russian tanker carrying liquified natural gas passed south through the Russian side of the Bering Strait, with two more to follow. The ships are traversing the northern coast of Siberia, called the North Sea Route, in the middle of January with no icebreaker escort, an unprecedented event that may hint at the future of the region as climate change alters global commerce.
Two more Russian LNG tankers made history earlier this month passing through the North Sea Route, which extends along the northern coast of Russian Asia, in late January, the latest commercial ship
The snowfall in Nome over the winter didn’t break the all-time record but it came close. According to the National Weather Service, 115.5 inches of snow fell, making the winter of 2017/18 number two for snowfall since modern weather reporting began.
Last Tuesday, February 20, residents of Little Diomede have seen the impossible. Instead of looking out at a frozen seascape of ice, they witnessed open water and high surf crashing onto the shores and coming up beyond the high water line.
Nearly 60 polar bears have been stranded on the Arctic coast near a remote village in Russia's Far East after warm winter weather hampered their hunting routine.
Cape Breton finally looks like a winter wonderland. A quick-moving storm that raced across Atlantic Canada dropped about 37 cm of snow over the Sydney area.
Researchers in Canada find that population did not bother making the 6,000km roundtrip in 2018-2019
All the rain and snow falling in Western Washington bumps up the risk for mudslides and avalanches.
“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.”
Plastic waste in the ocean is now so widespread it is polluting remote ice floes in the Arctic, scientists have discovered.
The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere.
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.
Never seen it this late in June
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