Word from John Markle of Interior Alaska received in late April on the warm weather Alaska has been recently experiencing. Feel free to comment on it and I will pass them on to John. Pass this along to Nathan and the Weather Together folks if you want. 

Hi Kevin 

Well I am not as  smart as the scientists are but a lot of this warmth is coming from the tropics.  Majority of the winter the  wind flow was from the south.  Most of the winter we have been under chinook conditions here as down slope winds  have kept  us warmer then norm. Did hit 52 below a couple of times  but  most night time temps was in the high 20’s to low 30’s below.  Since the 80’s I have watched  a  storm pattern change. The old storms use to  come across the gulf and slam into  SE  AK . Over the years there been  more and more storms going up the Bering Sea than what has been coming across the gulf.  The smart guys seem to be missing this link. If memory serves me right it was also about this time the California high started developing.  SE Alaska is under drought conditions.  Area there are hurting for water as the lakes are not getting replenished with water needed for hydro electric production. Last summer  several villages were under water rations. Just pull up Ketchikan rainfall amounts and notice the  big decrease in October rain.

Here we lacked snow last winter had less then 11 inches all winter. Ground was bare by mid March . Up in Fairbanks they had 3 times what we had including the last storm just yesterday.   Here my opinion on things.  It is like that frozen steak you take out of  freezer to thaw.  It is slow at first  but as it warms up  it thaws faster. Now apply that to years  coming out of ice age. We are in the last part of ice age and the thawing going to  continue to be faster and faster. The processing of the  poles have changed. Elder Eskimos  have told NASA that the stars have shifted on their raising and setting points. Here if you  just change the  sun angle fractions of a degree it can change how much heat hits  an area. Years ago I read an article  on this but it disappeared fast in a cover up.  Seem that there is a lag between heating and cooling down but the upper ionosphere has been reported as cooling down  from lack of sunspots.  The  knowledge gurus are saying the sun is going into another minimum like the one  back in the little Ice age. I do know that  in 1954 we had world wide 6 m openings 24 hours a day . Since that time  the sunspot count been decreasing each cycle. Somewhere there is a correlation. 

Anyway Kevin this is just a brief opinion of mine thoughts what is happening. I don’t believe in global warming as they say it is caused by man.  65 million years ago earth CO2 was 7K now .04.   Big difference.  As that ocean heats up it is releasing CO2 and water vapors well beyond what mankind can. Climate change I can buy as the earth is a dynamic planet. It is changing all the time, Plates move, earthquakes happen , ocean bottoms change, changing currents, and tilt of the planet.  There’s food for thought. Why are the other planets warming up also. Mars ice cap melting faster then norm and even the outer planets are showing signs of warming.

Take care as this 78 year old winter man is getting ready to plant a garden.

John

(Note: I didn’t have an Alaskan Mountain image handy so I am providing as the featured image to this message an image from Gannett Peak WY from last summer. )