While the rest of the world has mostly seen warmer than normal temperatures this winter, Alaska has been one the places on Earth that have been considerably colder normal than normal. We have basically had a continuous cold spell for the last 3 months with daily mean temperatures lingering around -30°C with frequent excursions down to -40°C and below (record cold months since 1999). We only had short blips of increases up to a max of -10°C during snow falls. Here is a map of the world for January:
Sunrise over the University Campus at -34°C seen from an early Saturday workshop at the International Arctic Research Center.
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Once one gets used to it this dry cold it is actually pretty nice, and the dog I was housesitting for loves our trips in the local ski trail.
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The snow never compacts much when it is that cold so snow plowing is quite feasible.
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If you are a little bird like this black-capped chickadee you really need to fluff up and be active most of the time to stay warm.
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The Yukon Quest sled dog race started from Fairbanks this year, a cold start at -33°C. Much more serious cold was waiting the mushers further north towards Yukon river during the race. This did not prevent spectators to show up at the Chena River start downtown:
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The race is long over and Brent Sass won again this year, but as the 10km bike trip downtown was very slow, I missed the first half of the teams, including him taking off. It was so cold that I had to operate the D500 with thick mittens. That caused me to change my usual focus strategy from using 25 point dynamc and maneuvering the focus point with the stick to 3D tracking mode and the focus point initially locked to the center, as it is very hard to control the stick or multi-selector with thick mittens. It just ends up at the edge where one does not want it to be. This worked pretty well although it was somewhat unpredictable which part of the dog team I would end up getting the focus on. Also I accidentally bumped the shutter speed to lower values, so not quite as crisp as I wished it to be.
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Dogs loves running in the cold
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This native Alaska woman and her children seemed very happy playing in the cold at the river bank.
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She proudly told me that the traditional native parka she was wearing was sewn by her grandmother, and she had just extended the arms to wear it herself. At a glance it does not look too warm, but it is lined with fur (beaver skin as I recall) on the inside so it provides very good insulation.
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