Monday, June 17, 2013

Why would anyone want to write about the weather?  Well, the weather makes a big difference in our lives, and in fact often drives our lives in one direction or another.  For example, my Dad was raised in rural Iowa, and helped a friend drive his belongings to Arizona where he was relocating.  He had a revelation in Arizona, and hurried back to Iowa to let my mother know that it was warm in Phoenix year round, comparatively.  No more shoveling snow or sliding around on the ice or shivering in your snow filled boots.  Mom must have loved Dad, because she packed up the house and my sister and I and we were off to Phoenix.  The trade wasn’t without sacrifice, however.  I’m sure my Grandmother only let her go kicking and screaming (not really, Grandma was pretty sedate), but the house we moved in to had only a swamp cooler and, in case you were unaware, Phoenix is HOT in the summer, from May to October.  Some might argue that it’s a “dry” heat, and it is, again comparatively, because Iowa in the summer is not only hot, but dripping with humidity which does suck the juice right out of you.  The “dry” heat you always hear about isn’t quite like that, but when the temperature is over 110 degrees, hot is hot.  Beverly and I have been privileged to enjoy many different climates, from the desert weather in Tucson to the snowy winters and humid summers in Boston, to the bone-chilling cold and hot and humid summers in  both Georgia and Kentucky.  The Kanto Plain in Japan boasted fairly temperate weather, and Mannheim, Germany was very similar, except for the noticeable lack of sunshine.  When I was at a dental meeting while serving in the Army, I met an orthodontist who was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska.  He pulled out a picture of himself,  beard and hair frosted white, standing next to a thermometer which read -30 degrees.  I was stunned that people lived in those conditions by choice.  I didn’t realize that temperatures in Minnesota and Iowa and Michigan sometimes get that cold, and have since been educated by former residents.  According to my friend from the Great White North however, temperatures will stay colder than that for a couple of months.  (In fact after we moved to Alaska and I took a temporary job in Fairbanks 3 days every 3 weeks, I used to run after work at -40 and woke up many mornings to -50, but that is another story)   I asked him what they did with their cars and he said that have electric heaters in the cooling system and that they plugged them in and used thinner lubricants. Stores and workplaces often have plugs in the parking lot so that you can plug in your car while inside.  When they don’t have plugs, people will often either leave their car running or have a remote start with a timer that will restart the car on a schedule of your choosing to keep it warm.  Driving at -50 is a bumpy experience as it takes a while for the portion of the tire that is flat against the ground to round out again.  I had heard only great things about living in Alaska, and  I put it at the top of my assignment preferences while we were in the Army, but when we finally got an assignment, I called my assignments officer in a panic, because after talking to my Fairbanks friend, I only wanted to go to Anchorage.  Fortunately, that is also what he had in mind, and when Beverly and I arrived in Anchorage on a house-hunting trip in July, we discovered a beautiful land, cool and green and vast.  We bought a house and flew to Arizona to pick up the family and, with my parents in their 5^th wheel and us in our Suburban, drove the up the Alcan.  We arrived a few weeks later, moved in, and by the first of September, Dad was anxious to drive south because he was afraid of the snow arriving too early. Now, 20 years later, we can speak with a little experience.  We’ve decided that there really is no typical weather for Anchorage.  Summer can be cold (40s and sometimes 50s) and rainy and cloudy like it has been for the last 3 years, or it can be 70s and 80s and beautiful like it is this year and was only one other year that we can remember.  Winter can start in September, or not really arrive until almost November.  We have years with almost no snow until after Christmas and years with lots of snow before Halloween.  The mean temperature in January is supposed to be 10 degrees, but sometimes is -20, and sometimes 20 above with sunshine.  A few days after most snowstorms, we get a Chinook which is a warm wind that melts the pretty snow in the trees and makes the roads icy to drive on.  April usually hosts one last big snowstorm with a foot or more of snow, but this year we got that storm on May 18, and now, a month later, it is 90 degrees and people are complaining that it is too hot to sleep in the house. The weather is always something for some of the folks to complain about, but it is always another beautiful day in Alaska, rain, snow, or shine.