Destruction

The mighty Yukon is putting up a fight this spring. The river has taken its first casualties after only making a few sweeping bends after crossing the border into Alaska. Portions of the village of Eagle have been swallowed by a chaotic sea of moving water and ice. (photo courtesy C.McElfresh)

The Old Native village is completely destroyed as massive blocks of ice smash the structures like match sticks and the river inundates the forest. (NWS photo)

Floodwaters reached the highest levels ever recorded at the quaint village which has been perched above the Yukon River for over 100-years. Buildings were twisted or completely removed from their foundations. (NPS photo)

Chunks of ice remain stranded as the water recedes. (NPS photo)

The roofs of two cabins are barely visible as they are carried into the middle of the river and begin their 1000-mile journey towards the Bering Sea (NPS photo).

Chasing Ice

I have been on the move this week. By air and by car chasing moving fragments of ice and floods. I captured the above video footage of a chaotic mess of ice and debris which completely clogged the Chantanika River north of Fairbanks. The entire river was sent rushing into the woods.

The weather is warm...really warm. All time-record high temperatures for this time of year were broken the past several days. This put an abrupt end to winter. The big heat wave resulted in a rapid melting of the snowpack and pushed a large slug of water into the rivers. Sheets of river ice which have remained dormant all winter have been suddenly lifted up and set into motion. Over the next few weeks most of the ice will flush downriver on its journey to the coast...while some slabs will become stranded on the shore and meet their demise as summer takes over.

Flooded in Fairbanks

The Tanana River inundates a Fairbanks neighborhood in late July

Between 4-6 inches of rain fell across the Fairbanks area the past few days. This pushed the Tanana River which skirts the the southern part of the city to its highest levels since the record flooding of 1967. The river flooded widespread swaths of low-lying land adjacent to the river including several neighborhoods around Fairbanks and the much of the town of Nenana.

Almost the entire town of Nenana was submerged by the waters of the Tanana River. I captured this image near the peak of flooding while doing aerial reconnaissance of the flood impacted areas. This was the worst flooding in Nenana since 1967.

Roads became river channels and many homes were only accessible by boat or with a pair of chest waders. Up to 300 residences were impacted by the flood waters.

Tour De Alaska Range

An ice fall plummets thousands of feet down the east face of Mt Hess.

I flew around the Alaska Range south of Fairbanks for a few hours today with some NOAA pilots that have been in AK for the past 2 weeks. They are here with an aircraft that is equipped with instrumentation that uses gamma radiation to measure the amount of water in the snowpack. There are a few hundred flight lines around the state that are roughly 10 miles long. They fly these lines at an altitude of 500 feet above ground level and obtain an average snow water equivalent for each flight line. This data provides insight into how much water is stored in the winter snowpack and is used to estimate the amount snowmelt runoff that will enter the river systems.

We flew over some absolutely awesome terrain and and countless glaciers.

The Black Rapids downhill ski area - I have heard about this ski hill south of Delta Junction for years but I have never actually seen it before. There was a lift and a few short runs.

One of the flight lines took us within a few miles of Bus 142 where Chris McCandless died back in the summer of 1992. The pilots were psyched to see the rusting hunk of steel so we made a low pass over this "sacred" location. For more photos of my ski to the bus click here.

Abstract Ice

I was up north for work this week. The scenery this time of the year is always quite stunning with the spring sunlight brightening up the northern landscape. I came across some absolutely amazing abstract designs in the ice at Island Lake on the north side of the Brooks Range. The oily blackness of the clear ice contrasted beautifully with the delicate cracks that penetrated deep into the frozen medium.

We passed what must have been several hundreds of caribou grazing on the lichens protruding out of the tundra. It just amazes me the these large animals can survive on crunchy, frozen lichens all winter.

Water waiting to be released

Ben measures the weight of a snow core near the Alaska-Yukon Territory border

I traveled up the Taylor Hwy in eastern Alaska the past couple of days to help the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with monthly snow surveys. Snow surveys are performed around Alaska (and the rest of the US) by various agencies during the spring in order to determine the amount of water locked up in the winter snowpack.

In a few months above freezing temperatures will arrive and all of this water in storage will start to melt...and begin its long journey down into the river systems and eventually to the sea. Knowledge of the amount of water stored in the snowpack is important for river and flood forecasting because this will help determine the likelihood and/or severity of spring flooding. In the western US, this type of snowpack information is especially important for water supply planning and determining potential drought conditions.

The Taylor Hwy is closed in the winter so we traveled nearly 200 miles on snowmachines to reach all of the snow survey sites. The Taylor is not really a highway in the general sense...much of it is a narrow dirt road with hairpin turns that connects the Alaska Highway with Eagle, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon Terr. The road was in great shape because it was being groomed for the International Poker Run - a snowmachine trek between Tok and Dawson City. The road was essentially a 100+ mile ski track...do I see a future ski trip?

So we measured snow depth and snow water equivalent (or the amount of water in the snow if it were melted) at 5 points in a line at what is called a "snow course." All of the snow courses we sampled were established back in the 1960's. This is a relatively long climatological record of the snowpack for Alaska. Snow courses are scattered all around the US. The snow water equivalent can also be measured remotely from aircraft and satellite. I went on a flight last spring that took measurements using airborne gamma radiation (see this post).

The scenery is beautiful along the Taylor Hwy. This is a birds eye view of the Walker Fork of the Fortymile River.

We passed through Chicken on our trip - too bad I wasn't here 3 weeks ago when the temperature bottomed out at -72F (-57.8C) for a few days. It was a balmy +5F (-15C) today.

We spent the night at the "not so" rustic Chicken Field station owned by the BLM.

The "Y" - this is the junction of the Taylor and Top of the World Highways. From here you can either go north to Eagle or east to Dawson City, Yukon.

Frosted willows near the Alaska-Canada border.

The spring sun brightens my view from the snowmachine.

Headed back to the office...

A day on the ice...

Bubbles frozen in time (at least until spring) on Harding Lake.

Drilling on the Salcha River. Around the 1st of each month during the winter I go out and measure ice thicknesses on lakes and rivers in the Fairbanks area. This provides useful climatological information about fall freeze-up, winter ice growth, and spring breakup. This data also aides in forecasting the timing of spring break-up and the potential for ice jams.

We also measure the snow depth and water equivalent of the snowpack on the ice surface. The amount of snow on the ice is one variable that controls the rate of ice growth. Deeper snow=more insulation=less ice growth.

Here is the weather station we installed at Chena Hot Springs resort in the fall. I returned there today to set up some software and get the weather data flowing to the Internet. Now anyone can see what the current weather conditions are out at the hot springs.

All of the vegetation around the hot springs was encrusted with a delicate layer of beautiful hoar frost.

Another Day in the Bush

The Kobuk Sandunes overtake the boreal forest in northwest Alaska. The dunes lie 40 miles north of Arctic Circle and are part of the largest active sand dunes in the Arctic.

I had another work trip out into the Alaskan bush today. I chartered a flight to take me several hundred miles northwest of Fairbanks to the villages of Kiana and Ambler on the Kobuk River with a quick stop in Hughes on the Koyukuk River on the way back to town. Getting out in the field and seeing rural Alaska is certainly one of the perks to my job. I do enjoy working in the office but I can only tolerate being a slave in front of the computer issuing forecasts for short bursts of time. I try to take another fellow worker with me because I usually need a second hand but I also think it benefits our staff to become familiar with our forecast area. This time I recruited ye ol' salt of the office--Ron Stuvek.

My cooperative field assistant Ron helps me survey in a new river gage in Kiana. The village council will be taking daily river readings for us. They were nice enough to let us cruise around on a 4-wheeler in order for us to get our work done. About 400 people live in the village of Kiana on the banks of the Kobuk River

Curtains of rain fall over the meandering Kobuk River

The kids of Ambler were out trying to catch the first Sheefish running up the Kobuk River

A Day in the Bush

My field slaves--Julie and Kelly--ready to head into the Alaskan bush.

I went on another short work trip today. I did some hydrologic field work along the Yukon River in the villages of Beaver, Ft. Yukon and Circle City. These villages are only accessible by plane. In order to get all the work done in one day I charted a Cessna 207 and dragged along 2 lovely field assistants from my office to serve as my slaves. Julie is our summer hire from Penn State and she was lucky enough to come out to the field with me on her second day on the job.

The thriving metropolis of Beaver on the Yukon River.

We were transported on the river observers 4-wheeler because there are no vehicles in this village.

Ft. Yukon looks like Beaver on steroids--there are stops signs, vehicles, and a lot more people.

Fortunately Kelly had a life jacket on because she almost did a swan dive over the nose of the boat while trying to grab some of our equipment when we were surveying the river.

My field assistants were easily entertained by the sites of Ft. Yukon.

I made the girls do all the manual labor while I sat back and barked orders.

My river observers in Ft. Yukon invited us over for potato salad, rhubarb cake, iced tea and a weenie roast.

Field Work on The 40-Mile

Pasque or crocus flowers bloom on the dry slopes above the 40-Mile River

I just got back from my first stint of summer field work. I went out to the Taylor Hwy in eastern Alaska to take flow measurements along various branches of the 40-Mile River. I also checked in with our weather observers in that neck of the woods. Most of our work was done from bridges and this is a great time of the year to be out there because the tourists are still a few weeks away and there were absolutely no vehicles on the road.

Here I am at O'brien Creek getting the flow measuring equipment ready so we can take our readings.

One of our river/weather observers has this great spread near the 40-mile river. Their sauna is right next to this little creek so you can sit in the screened in area and cool off.

Of course there is no running water out here so the sauna is used as bathhouse too. There are big pots of hot water on the stove to pour over yourself.

OK--I know its bad to feed the wildlife but this fox has grown up at the Taylor's place on the 40-Mile River and is used to being fed by hand.

This little guy is very cute.

We measured the flow at Jack Wade creek which runs right along the appropriately named Jack Wade gold dredge.

I took notes while Ben negotiated shore ice on Jack Wade Cr.