Rain on Snow

Siberian reindeer herders and scientists are working together to figure out how to predict rain-on-snow events that turn tundra into deadly ice.

Alaska communities are facing significant challenges due to climate change, including the disappearance of snow crabs, threats to subsistence hunting and fishing, and difficulties in processing and storing food, but some communities are taking action and developing local climate adaptation plans with the support of funding and collaboration between different governments and agencies.

David Kuptana, an elder and full-time harvester said ice should be forming around his home on Victoria Island this time of year — but instead, temperatures have been hovering around zero and it's been raining.

Scientists found that the glaciers are triggering the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes global temperatures to rise.

State officials say Unalakleet will see work to improve conditions on its water system in the near future.

The Copper River Basin in Alaska has experienced less reliable snow and ice conditions in recent years, impacting winter activities such as trapping, hunting, and gathering firewood. This study, based on nine oral interviews with local residents, reveals that crossing rivers has become more treacherous and difficult, with significant changes in ice conditions observed since the 1970s. Decreased snowpacks and increased shrub growth have also posed obstacles for accessing winter trails, requiring individuals to cut through forests. These changes, combined with socio-economic and technological factors, have affected the way people engage in winter activities in the Copper River Basin. Overall, this research contributes to the understanding of climate change's impact on winter activities in Alaska and the Circumpolar North.

The combination has resulted in some of the US' most destructive and costly floods, including the 1996 Midwest floods and the 2017 flood that damaged California’s Oroville Dam

Atmospheric river boosted California's snowpack, especially in Central and Southern Sierra. Now the levels are record level creating safety issues such as roofs collapsing and helping with drought conditions across the western states.

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.

Alf Åge Teigmo heard a huge crash: "First came a river, then forest and large boulders.

"Just when I get into the machine, I just manage to sit in the seat and then the body of the excavator fills with slush and presses me against the window and then presses the whole machine off the road into the valley."

The upper mountain at Eaglecrest Ski Area in Juneau was closed on Friday following a large avalanche Thursday morning. No one was hurt.

A landslide has closed busy highway 80 between Fauske and Bodø. The Nordland Line has also been affected. The weather has been very bad with large amounts of rainfall in Nordland today. There have been snow and slush avalanches in several places in the county, and a number of road and train sections have been closed due to avalanches.

Light rain is expected to fall across much of the region Tuesday, with a storm possibly bringing more rain to Anchorage on Wednesday.

Rain began to fall on the already snow-covered Yamal Peninsula, an Arctic region of northwest Siberia, in November 2013. Rain fell for the next 24 hours.  As rain saturated the snow, the temperature dropped below freezing, turning the precipitation into a thick, icy crust. 

The last time the water levels were this high in some places was in the late 1990s or early 2000s. According to the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), floodwaters will likely spill onto fields and roads in parts of southern and western Finland, but not into buildings.

Alaska State Troopers said on Tuesday that Curtis Worland, a Court Service Officer for the Nome AST post, was killed by a musk ox in the afternoon.

See photo gallery.

A week of several freeze and thaw cycles left Nome and the region with puddles on ice and scenes that look more like breakup in spring rather than the customary snowy landscape of December. The rain on ice interrupted normal life in Nome.

October flew by leaving us with a couple of light snowfalls. November came around with something slightly more impressive, but it wasn't the same. Mid December decided to make up for all of the snowfalls that we missed all at once, it seems like.