Hope all is well up there in the great state of Alaska. Thought you might find the following comment from a reader of the story humorous.


I've never heard of a Hurricane force storm hitting Alaska. Climate change still a myth?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45218633/ns/weather/#.Trqdb3LzI_c

Cheers all keep your feet dry.

As it says in the article, we tend to get storms such as this one on a fairly regular basis. It's not your everyday thing, but people who have lived more than a handful of years have seen them. Consequently, people sometimes don't heed the warnings as they should. This is (was) a potentially hazardous storm. Fortunately there is some ice forming which helps to buffer the wave action. Again, fortunately, that ice is not thick enough yet to cause damage when it gets pushed up; it simply piles into slush which makes a barrier to further wave action. That isn't true in all places, of course, so some may be getting more wave or ice damage, but we haven't really had it as bad as it looked like it could get. We may still get flooding after the strong northerly push since Bering Sea water isn't going to make it through the Bering Strait very quickly. Be interesting to see who got hammered. It wasn't a good storm to be on a southerly facing coast (like Nome for example).

It's from MSNBC, i'm not surprised by their comments. I'd say most of them know nothing about Alaska's weather.

Folks in Alaska endure and do things on a daily basis that would be front page news if they happened in the lower 48. Just part of everyday life up there.

I still haven't seen the FEMA trucks...Where are they?

They'll be there next spring.

What those morons at pms-nbc don't realize is that we get these types of storms quite often. We just don't give them names and then stand there with our hand out to FEMA waiting for help we do not deserve nor want.

Oops, looks like others have said the same thing. I guess I should have read the entire thread first.

yup!.......u got either got grit...or u should get.

I need to build a pad for my new FEMA trailer.

ouch

Hey, maybe we can get a group discount on trailer pads?

just throw some pallets down on the tundra.

I'm still waiting for my check from the last storm. Come on FEMA, I need some new studded tires for my truck.

Well hey, now that you mention it. I could use some cash to finally buy a cabin up in the Lake Louise area.

Went for a little 'spin' around town on the sno-go. Winds are presently just under 40, gusting to just under 50. It all looks pretty benign. All except for the water. Our typical single daily tide which would normally be a very high tide at 5 feet is showing the promise of what they were predicting. You can see the water creeping inland as you watch, a veritable bore tide, relatively speaking. That's my only worry.

You may be bootstrappy as far as handling stormy weather, but Alaska gets more federal taxdollar assistant per capita than any other state.

Only problem with that is that it isn't distributed equitably per capita.

[quote=heavywalker]Hope all is well up there in the great state of Alaska. Thought you might find the following comment from a reader of the story humorous.

The lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

These types of storms happen and have little to do with the climate change debate. The problem is the lack of attached sea ice. In the late 90's and early 2000s the NW Coast of Alaska started to see sea ice form much later than it usually did. The common thinking was we pulled our boats out of Kotzebue's moodiest small boat lagoon by Sept. 25th ish because the ice would come over night freezing your hunting rig till the next summer (June). I remember that in 2005 we had a warm spell that melted the lagoon ice in early Oct and we boated/hunted for another 2 weeks or so. By 2007 we could keep our boats in the water until Oct 5th ish with little fear of ice. Later sea ice, longer boating season warmer water and air.Good or bad?

Thee benefit of solid, land fast fall sea ice is it acts as a cap on Kotzebue Sound keeping storm surges from damaging low lying areas like Kotz, Point Hope and Kivalina. We are seeing later solid sea ice and earlier break up which is also a safety problem for sno-go travel. Global warming? Climate change? Time will tell.

At least we are not going to be subjected to bammy's nonsense today as he shuts down all the rest of you guy's media. We will not suffer the fools intentions of disrupting our services. We will not be told the sky is falling.

A Maxi-Pad I am guessing!

Ah, yet another person with the barest minimum of knowledge of this state, using someone's partially accurate numbers to form their own very inaccurate conclusion. Just another thing we Alaskans have to deal with. sigh

Something you must know plenty about. The second part in red, is you to a T.

Next to the igloo I assume? (I'm sure the MSN crowd thinks that anyway)

You just need Walt to direct his drivel to the west, it will create a high pressure system that will drive the storm to Russia.

That's why these storms track the way they do...Walt sucks.

Where would the Occupy Point Hope and Change be without him?

Pfffffft........ Idiots. That's a normal thing out here on the AKPEN and Aleutians.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/raging-bering-sea-doesnt-much-scare-some-hardy-alaskans

With fingers still crossed, I will have to say it could have been worse, and has been. And perhaps it is common for the sheet ice, and cakes, clumps, and so forth push onshore and mow things over in the Aleutians. However, wet is wet, and when the water rises high enough things that didn't or couldn't get moved, get wet. It's a pretty simple concept really. And, at this time of year, the water tends to be cold.

From what I have been able to find out, it wasn't simply the strength of this storm that drew attention, it was the speed at which it formed, and how deep. It made a pretty good swath also.



Hooper Bay to Cape Lisburne seems like a pretty fair swipe, and that's only Alaska. The low actually passed over or closer to the Russian mainland. But again, it's less about the wind, and more what happens when water gets pushed through a narrow place like the Bering Strait. The Bering Sea (or the Chuckchi) get a bit unruly when you try to shove that much water through a relatively narrow spot. Certainly makes the day more interesting than usual, although some uncertainty was certain.