Mother Nature definitely decided to take her sweet ole time about giving this area its first ‘significant’ snow fall but this is without question a case of ‘better late than never’. The snow event started around day break on Monday, December 1st and continued until early evening on Tuesday, December 2nd. During that time we accumulated 7.5″ of new snow for a snow pack of 9.5″. This is quite late in the season for the first significant snow event; last Thanksgiving we had 25″ of snow pack although starting in middle December things really went downhill in terms of winter and really never recovered. As is typical for this area but completely counter to all my previous winter experience when it snows we rarely see any wind at all; this allows the snow to just accumulate on any fairly flat horizontal surface. The result is the immense boreal forest wrapped up in gleaming white snow. This also contributes to the incredible silences we experience in winter; all that snow all over the trees, brush and ground acts as a sound absorber.
Here are some images from the recent event:
Driving south down The Spur Tuesday afternoon after doing the noon news at KTNA; almost to the left turn onto East Barge Drive (green sign just visible on left)
Returning from my Monday evening music show at KTNA I had just turned east onto East Barge Drive and decided to try taking a picture leaving my Moose Lights (aka ‘driving lights’) on. My place is further up the road maybe another two tenth’s of a mile.
Looking NNE at the west and south side of my place from the driveway; the orange plastic fence actually helps contain the dogs in the back yard when there’s no snow on the ground. To the far right is my ShelterLogic ‘garage’ with my Escape nice and dry inside it.
A look out my kitchen window Tuesday morning; the snow was still falling and showing some definite accumulation by this point
Qanuk and Anana enjoying the fresh snow but especially loving the vehicle tracks on East Barge Drive
View of front ‘yard’ with shed; the ole homestead always looks better in snow!
Alaskan at Last! 
Looks great!
Sadly the weather is back to acting up yet again! Yesterday (Sunday, 12/07) we hit 35 F and never dropped below 20 F and this morning our ‘low’ was 28 F and as of 10:29 AKST we’re already seeing 33.7 F. Thankfully we haven’t seen precipitation but a ways further south as around Wasilla and into the Matanuska Valley there was some freezing rain on Sunday afternoon. The locals tell me freezing rain was something only experienced rarely during the transitions from fall to winter and again from winter to spring. The warmer temps have caused a lot of snow sublimation and has allowed the fluffy white character to become more compacted and dense which then allows the snow to slide off the tree branches. We remain well below normal for precipitation thus far into our winter but then we were extremely dry across most of the summer and the fall so the pattern continues. Sure would be nice to see some serious cold and snow..!