It's a 'Polar Vortex' and it's headed your way

Every now and then something happens here in Alaska that makes me feel connected to the lower 48. I felt that way when Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail and I feel that way  again today as we prepare to send my lower 48 readers the remains of Typhoon Nuri. As you can see that baby's epi-center is about 300 miles due south of Mile 14 and is headed your way. It's supposed to drop the temps in Great Falls Montana down to single digits and as it's bigger than super Storm Sandy was it will effect weather all the way to Texas...bad deal.

But for Alaskan's it's just another day. I got a kick out of the Alaska Dispatch News report that people on the island community of Adak were ' driving differently to keep the car doors from being blown off '. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see footage of the 50 foot waves someday on the Deadliest Catch.... I mean what a great opportunity for those yeh who's on the Time Bandit. As a young guy I remember well my sister calling when we'd have the usual volcano explosion or the -40 spell or the wind forced power outages that were so common. And to this day I still use her advice when the s*#* hits the fan....fill up the bath tub. I guess that could help in a lot of ways. Of course you could get clean, you could drink it or you could drown yourself in it if it all gets toooooo bad.

So with Typhoon Nuri having just left the neighborhood today's We Alaskan's section had a few Nuggets of whats different between us and the 48.

On the longest night Anchorage gets 5.5 hours of light.  In Barrow the darkness is called " civil twilight"....now what the hell does that mean ?

Jan 21st 1971 at Prospect Creek the coldest U.S. Temp ever recorded was - 80 ( coldest ever Oscar goes to our neighbors in the Yukon at -81) ....coldest ever USA was from my home state of Montana, -70 at Rogers Pass (coincidently that's where they caught the Uni Bomber) .

And how about snow? Valdez is Alaska's snowiest city averaging 326 inches a year ( that's 27 feet). Years ago I talked with a guy who lived there and owned two snow blowers. One he had in his garage to do the drive way like I do and one that was kept on the roof...and that's no kiddin. Anchorages single biggest day of snowfall was 22 inches on March 17 2002

So you've read this far and you're wondering  what the point is. Tell me something I don't know kinda deal I suppose. mmmmmm......well just naming the storms kind of amuses me. Last October me and MPeasy drove through ' Winter Storm Ajax'  in southern North Dakota and I have to admit, even this toughened Alaskan was impressed, it was obvious to me that if they give the storm a name, it's serious. So to all my friends in the 48, batten down the hatches, fill up the bath tub, get candles out and don't forget to go to the store. Which reminds me of the 2 week stint we did years ago when a huge avalanche closed the road to Anchorage. Of course all our supplies come down by road and the town starting to get a little testy when things became in short supply. The first thing we ran out of ? You guessed it.......Bud Light.  So hey, it's coming your way, I'm just trying to help.