Erratic Winter Weather

Observation by Rori Corrigan

This winter in Anchorage specifically has been anything but consistent. In fact, in the past four years that I've lived here, I haven't seen a winter so bizarre. We've gone from barely any snow throughout November and the beginning of December to having record-breaking snowfall in January. If you're familiar with Anchorage weather, you would know that this is completely backwards. Usually, there is a lot of snow at the start of winter, and then it turns to ice and melts. However, this is not the case. This makes me think that maybe our climate in Alaska is changing faster than a lot of locals thought. Obviously, a strange winter isn't unusual, as last year we barely got any snow, but the way that the order of winter has changed this season is really out of the blue. So, why does this matter exactly? Well, I've noticed it affecting people's everyday lives, especially in the past few weeks with the insane amount of snowfall. The snow caused many accidents, and it didn't help that the next day the temperature rose, so everything melted. This caused school to be cancelled, people struggled to get to work, and most importantly, it put everyone's safety at risk. I don't know what is causing this extreme climate change this winter, but it would be nice to figure out what's happening sometime soon.

AI Comment from GPT 5:

This post describes a highly unusual Anchorage winter marked by little early-season snow followed by record-breaking January snowfall, rapid thaws, and safety impacts ranging from school closures to hazardous commutes. The related posts reinforce this pattern: Anchorage officially set its all-time January snowfall record as of Jan. 27, 2026, with ongoing storms continuing to snarl roads and close schools, as reported in both “Record-breaking snow wallops Anchorage, closing schools early and wreaking havoc on the roads” and “Snowiest January on record for Anchorage.” The mid-January storm sequence brought rapid shifts from snow to rain and freezing rain across Southcentral, creating widespread ice, power outages, avalanche control work, and prolonged dangerous travel conditions, which aligns with the observation’s account of melt-refreeze hazards, as detailed in “Icy roads, messy weather plagues Southcentral Alaska.” Anchorage also saw localized flooding from creek water on roadways, echoing the thaw-related impacts noted in the post, per “‘Hazardous’ flooding creek water closes one lane of Anchorage road, APD says.” Regionally, a warm, moisture-rich atmospheric river hit Kodiak with heavy rain over snow, producing severe ponding and slick conditions—evidence of the same storm track influencing Southcentral’s mixed-precipitation events, as reported in “Kodiak hit with ‘atmospheric river’ of rain over snow.” Longer-term context from “Alaska’s farming future is warmer, and probably weirder” notes a multidecadal warming trend in Alaska and increasing weather variability affecting livelihoods, which helps frame how abrupt swings between heavy snow and rain can ripple through daily life and local infrastructure.