For two years in a row, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game canceled the snow crab season in the Bering Sea after biologists discovered an estimated 10 billion crabs had mysteriously disappeared — a 90% plunge in the population.

Now, fishermen are once again allowed to catch snow crabs — but they’re facing uncertainty as the species has only rebounded to a small fraction of what it once was. Meanwhile, some are still dealing with the consequences of the two-year pause.

“It’s been extremely difficult,” said commercial fisherman Gabriel Prout, who’s based on Kodiak Island. “There’s not a lot you can do. These boats are specifically designed to go out and catch crab, so we’re over $4 million in debt.”

Biologists blamed the rapid decline of snow crab on a 2018 climate-fueled heatwave. This “warming event” was initially thought of as a rare “lightning strike,” explained research biologist Ben Daly, but the “concern moving forward is that the predictions are suggesting higher frequency of lightning strikes in the future.”

Daly is now developing tracking devices to monitor snow crabs and identify healthy populations for sustainable harvesting.

“It helps us understand their movement patterns in response to environmental changes,” Daly said.

And it’s not just snow crabs that have been affected by warming waters. Other Alaskan species, like Pacific cod, king salmon and pollock have also experienced population decline. Between 2022 and 2023, Alaska’s seafood industry suffered a nearly $2 billion loss, according to NOAA. 

That industry extends to fish markets and dinner tables thousands of miles from Alaska. In some places, prices of Alaskan seafood have shot up nearly 60% in just a few years, according to Expana, which monitors pricing across the seafood industry.

“What the customer has to be aware of, more of what you’ll be eating will be imported, more of what you’ll be eating will be less regulated, more of what you’ll be eating will be caught with destructive fishing gear,” said Kenny Belov, who owns a seafood company and restaurant in California’s Bay Area.

In Kodiak, commercial fishing pots have returned to the water this season after officials lifted the two-year ban. The moratorium helped populations, but the quota will only be about a tenth of what it was three seasons ago.

“It’s hard to even consider a plan B when fishing is in my blood. I’m a third-generation fisherman,” Prout said.

For now, it’s a modest lifeline for fishermen who find themselves drifting deeper into the unknown.

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Thick snow is piling up in the Northeast while Southern Arizona is dry even for a desert. KGUN9 was at University of Arizona talking to a National Weather Service meteorologist about the dangers a continued dry winter could bring.

We have not needed an umbrella for a very long time except maybe for shade. Even by Arizona standards it has been an unusually hot dry winter.

It doesn’t take long for snow to go from white, fluffy and beautiful to a wet, messy, sometimes dangerous nuisance.

But here in Arizona, people are crying for at least a little bit of some sort of moisture.

Over at Harlow Gardens, Melaney Quinnrose is looking for plants with a better chance of surviving a drought.

“Yeah, it’s definitely been drier. We got a lot more rain last winter. I still had green stuff in my backyard last winter, and I don’t now.”

Cyndi Anderson is adjusting to keeping plants in Arizona after living in Washington state.

“I couldn’t believe in December just how quickly things can die, if you’re not on it.”

“So we’re running drier than normal right now, especially compared to last winter.”

At the National Weather Service Tucson office meteorologist Dalton Van Stratten says they’ve recorded no rain at all at the airport since November 3rd.

You can blame the drought on a climate effect way out in the Pacific Ocean. A surge of cold water called La Nina usually brings dry winters to the Southwest.

But our winter rains are important to build water reserves.

Van Stratten says, “If we don’t receive enough winter to restore the water in the aquifers, then we can have increased drought conditions so the soils will dry, the vegetation will dry, which will cause an increased concern for our fire weather season, which typically is in the mid to late spring time.”

But he says except for an occasional rain that breaks the pattern expect this year’s winter to stay dry.

(Bloomberg) — Exceptionally powerful, dry winds expected across Southern California this week are set to send wildfire risk skyrocketing in a region that’s endured more than eight months without significant rain.

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Forecasters predict the strongest Santa Ana wind event of the season will start Tuesday and extend late into the week. As offshore winds race down local mountain ranges, they’ll bring gusts of up to 80 miles (129 kilometers) per hour to densely-populated communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, putting more than 4.5 million residents at risk, according to the US Storm Prediction Center. Downtown Los Angeles hasn’t seen more than a half-inch of rain since April, according to National Weather Service data.

“This is one of those patterns that make the hair stand up a little bit,” said climatologist Daniel Swain at the University of California Los Angeles, who called the event an “atmospheric blow dryer.” The winds, he said Monday, would be strong enough to topple trees and power lines, block roads, trigger blackouts and cancel flights at airports. “This will probably affect more people more substantially than a major rainstorm.”

In a post on X Monday, forecasters for the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned of “life-threatening, destructive” winds in areas not typically affected by Santa Ana events. Some of the region’s most affluent and exclusive communities — such as Beverly Hills and Malibu — are included.

In some mountain passes and foothill communities, gusts could reach 100 mph, drying the air and pushing humidity levels as low as 4%, said Nick Nauslar with the US Storm Prediction Center.

“That’s going to continue for two, three, perhaps four days,” said Nauslar, the center’s fire weather science and operations officer. With this combination of factors, he said, “you’re getting into the upper echelon of Santa Ana wind events in the last couple decades.”

Months without rain have parched the Southern California landscape, leaving dry grasses, shrubs and trees that can fuel wildfires. The amount of moisture stored inside local vegetation — which can prevent it from burning — is now “well below normal and approaching record low for this time of year,” Nauslar said.

Red flag fire warnings have been issued for much of the Los Angeles area and its suburbs. But high winds will extend far beyond the city, with strong gusts expected from Shasta County in far northern California all the way to the Mexican border. Wind advisories were also posted for the hills above the San Francisco Bay Area wine country, which has suffered a series of devastating fires in recent years.

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