Low Snowfall Winters

As a long time reader and life time weather enthusiast I've been invited to share some of my observations about weather in our great state of Alaska.  I'm sure not going to surprise anyone when I say that this winter has been shaping up as a dry one. In fact the Fairbanks airport is reporting a snow pack depth of only 2 inches from a total of 4.1 fallen inches .  Normally we'd see about 2 feet of measured snow by now. Indeed Fairbanks has only received 0.26" of liquid equivalent since October 1st.

I suspected that low snow years may correlate with persistent southerly steering flow. After talking with Richard James he suggested I look at 700 mb level wind direction. I reviewed wind data from 2000-2016 during the winter period of each year (Oct 1st-April 1st). I found that when winds are coming from almost due south (180 degrees) Fairbanks had low snow years.

No surprise the Alaska Range is real good at blocking out moisture from the Pacific. So for you snow lovers out there; southerly winds are bad.  I should note that there is a small correlation to snowy years when winds are more from the south west and off the Bering sea. I'll expand on this more later. Thanks for reading my first post.  -Mike