Christmas (read winter) came early

[Øivind Tøien]

So it was not availability of  the 300PF for regular order at B&H  that appeared. Friday we woke up to a rather winterly landscape here in Fairbanks. It was snowing and snowing, but finally it cleared up to a rather beautiful landscape in my neighborhood (all of these with AW1 with 11-27.5mm):

#1




For a short while the sun was shining on the loaded trees from a mostly clear sky. The sun caused melting with thousands of water droplets.
#2




#3




Remnants of autumn.
#4




Then it started to rain continuously again, and over the weekend most of the snow melted.
#5




Winter did not give up though, so here is a rather snowy scene from the university today.
#6




On my way home - where is the bike path?  I do not know where I had my head though because all the following images were accidentally exposed at AW1's highest ISO 6400    (some noise reduction applied).
#7





I am starting to hear crashing sounds of trees coming down because of the snow load; there is no wind.
#8





Ice did not even get time to cover a local lake.
#9




#10




#11






Attack of the spruce trees!!! The one in the foreground came down while we were standing there, but missed the neighbor cabin (the same tree as in #2).
#12




#13

[Olivier]

Wow, late September... I am not yet in the mood for snow, so your story (although very well documented) does not trigger any envy!
Good luck!

[elsa hoffmann]

that looks COLD!

[Bjørn J]

You got the first snow before us here in northern Norway, and we are further north than you are
(But we are also closer to the sea.)

[Frank Fremerey]

We still have sunny days here in Western Germany. Slight frost at night. 20°C in the afternoon.

Snow? Oh no. Go away. But the pictures are very nice. I just do not want to be there now.

[Mike G]

Beautiful whites, lovely.

[Gary]

I can feel the cold ... which is good because it is in the upper 80's here.

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the comment all of you.

BTW the attack of the spruce trees has continued. I woke up today to hear a crash. Power was out in the neighborhood from several trees across the power lines. In addition the top of a spruce tree had crashed down on the line passing the cable modem into my cabin,  just missing the cabin itself. That must have been the crash I heard late last night. Since power was out it is unknown if it is broken. I skied in to to work (must be personal early record, I am not even sure I skied that early in the autumn during my years in Tromsø), just to find that everybody I got in contact with also were out of power at their homes...

[To top it all, it seems that Zenfolio that hosts my images is really messed up right now, no images shown when posting this message, and there was an apology in my email today. These problems have been going on since last week. Thus I post no followup images of the snow damage now.]

[bobfriedman]

is #6 the U of Alaska?

[Øivind Tøien]

Yes it is from University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The image shows the curved outline of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) to the left with the geophysics building to the right. I believe the rocket is one of those used a the Poker Flat Research Range to study the Aurora.

[bobfriedman]

yes... a sounding rocket...

[Øivind Tøien]

Bob, thanks for the rocket identification.

After two days without power and heat, electricity was finally restored. So my "camping trip" (dinners cooked outside on my camp stove) is over for now, and against all odds the internet connection is working. >20 000 customers were without power at the peak, which probably amounts to > half of Fairbanks. Some of the mess before cleanup:

Yes, that is the connection to my cable modem carrying the tree...




Local cause of power out, in addition there was a more regional one  (no street lights or other light in the area and very quiet when I returned home late last night).
A power cable is visible on the ground. There was a small fire in the closest birch tree.




One realizes  how vulnerable the infrastructure of our societies are these days and how much we depend on it. BTW, the kind of weather we had now repeated itself regularly through the winter during my time in Tromsø, but here is Fairbanks, neither nature nor man is prepared for this kind of snowfall with heavy wet snow. It usually stays nice and dry and cold, and the light snow barely ever get a chance to compact before spring time.