Snow blows across the Parks Highway near the Glenn-Parks highway interchange at 8:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in a state road camera image. (From Alaska DOTPF)
A weather system bringing Arctic air to Southcentral and Southwest Alaska has meteorologists warning of subzero temperatures, along with wind gusts that could bring wind chill to 50 degrees below zero in some areas.
The National Weather Service’s Anchorage office posted an overview of the conditions Tuesday afternoon, saying the worst wind chills were likely in low-lying areas like mountain passes.
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Anchorage-based NWS meteorologist Michael Kutz said Wednesday morning that the cold snap was being produced by two weather systems bracketing the state to the east and west.
“What we have is a broad area of low pressure that’s over on the Canadian border, and an area of high pressure that’s out to our west,” he said. “And it is straight-funneling cold air down from the Arctic, all the way down into both Southcentral and Southwestern Alaska.”
While temperatures in Anchorage are expected to drop to the single digits, with parts of East Anchorage falling below zero, Kutz said winds accompanying the cold snap will make them feel much colder – as low as 40 degrees below zero in Southcentral Alaska and 50 below in inland Southwest areas, according to the weather service.
“You combine that with the advent of the light winds, generally around 10 miles per hour, and your wind chills drop down rather quickly,” he said.
The bitter-cold conditions will require people to don winter coats and cover exposed skin, which can quickly suffer frostbite as temperatures near 20 below.
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“Exposed skin freezes within about five minutes,” Kutz said. “And that’s when you start getting damaged and go into frostbite mode, where you can possibly lose body parts.”
Kutz urged homeless people across the region, who have suffered hypothermia and frostbite cases during a winter marked by plummeting temperatures and major snow dumps, to seek warming shelters. Anchorage has recently ramped down to one such shelter on 56th Avenue from three, as their use declined following a January chill.
The deep cold descends again during Anchorage’s Fur Rendezvous, as the city ramps up for the start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Temperatures are forecast to drop down to a low of 11 below Friday night and then crawl back to a high of 12 degrees on Saturday morning as the dog sled teams parade through the city.
The cold snap should let up starting Sunday, Kutz said, giving way to Southcentral snow early next week from a system currently moving up the Aleutian chain.
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Chris Klint is a web producer and breaking news reporter at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cklint@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Chris here.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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