Ketchikan, Alaska is known for two things: salmon and rain. I know this well as I have been here several times visiting family. The combination of wind and rain often makes it feel like you are living in a car wash. Ketchikan, which is located on the inland passage in southeast Alaska, has fully embraced it's status at the Rain City . It proudly displays a "liquid sunshine gauge" on the boat dock showing just how wet it is. A closeup shows that they claim an average rainfall of 12.5 ft (150") per year. That's a lot of rain and, perhaps not surprisingly, Ketchikan is widely promoted as the rainiest city in America (e.g., destimationalaska.com ). Being a meteorologist, I began to wonder if this was really the case. There are the usual challenges in evaluating such a claim. What is meant by a city? What is the period of record? Is the data reliable? Etc... For the purposes of this post, we'll concentrate on clima...
i dont know, have you been up there in the last week? seems like the snowpack has definitely experienced some melting. air temps well above freezing every day and nonstop intense sunlight... there are a lot of new bare spots that havent been dry for a few months. not good.
ReplyDeleteBrian - I'm sure that's the case on southerly aspects (especially where it is thin), but for there to be a net loss of mass, however, the snowpack needs to "ripen" so that it's entire depth is 0C/32F. I doubt that's the case at Collins. Perhaps there's some surface melt, but I suspect the water is refreezing in the snowpack.
ReplyDeleteand thats why youre the expert. the spots im thinking of were already thin, all on steep S or W facing terrain, and all sitting on rock. most were on crests. im sure the water all refroze within spitting distance of the new bare spots
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