Hikers lucky as warmth, ash speed snowmelt

Or maybe it was just that the summer of '08 was so rotten that our perspective is still out of whack.

In case you've forgotten, '08 was a record-setter. Only twice all year did the thermometer at the National Weather Service office in Sand Lake reach 70 degrees.

We've already been to 70 once this year, and the season's alpine snow melt -- spurred on by the volcanic dust left behind by the eruptions of Redoubt volcano -- appears way ahead of schedule.

June 1 dawned with almost all the ridges, and a lot of the gullies, in the front range Chugach Mountains snow free. Some trails into the mountains remain muddy in places, but that is in many cases due as much to a heavy, late May rain as to the melt-off.

The rain at the end of the month also caused something of a vegetative explosion.

From the looks of things, if you're into hiking, you'd best get a move on before trails disappear into that jungle of shoulder-high grass and cow parsnip that can shoot skyward seemingly overnight when the growing conditions are good.

And they've been pretty good.

The warm days of early May came with clear skies that allowed the sun to cook south-facing slopes. Soils rapidly warmed. Snowfields, dusted with gray volcanic grit, rapidly disappeared.

Chugach park superintendent Tom Harrison notes the powerful, heat-collecting ability of even a little of volcanic ash, but he said that shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone.

"I notice my blacktop starts to thaw faster than my lawn," Harrison said.

Dark surfaces absorb energy. Light surfaces reflect energy.

Light surfaces reflecting energy onto nearby dark surfaces magnify the process. The annual tilting of the planet so that the northern hemisphere falls increasingly under the direct rays of the sun magnifies the process. A clear sky, which allows the energy of sunlight to shine directly on heat-gathering surfaces, magnifies the process.

Warmth begets more warmth. After a long winter, it is a good thing.

Even that volcanic ash, which sparked a rush for face masks and some momentary concerns about automobile engines only short months back, is starting to look good. It provides one more solar collector to help capture the warmth of the sun and hold it close to the too-often-frozen ground of Alaska.

Maybe this year we'll catch a break. This just in from the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service:

"Ridges expected over Alaska and the Southcentral CONUS (continental U.S.) favor an enhanced likelihood of above normal temperatures for Alaska" in the first couple weeks of June.

The local office of the weather service is forecasting it could hit 70 again today. Another 70-degree day before the official arrival of summer?

It's almost too much to hope for, but even the birds seem happy.

The swallows, many of which didn't nest locally last summer because it was too dang cold, are already nesting. Yes, inevitably, unavoidably, the mosquitoes are hatching too. But the swallows feast on them, and so far, at least in the skies over one yard on the Anchorage Hillside, the swallows seem to be winning the battle for aerial supremacy.

The weather is grand. Get out. Enjoy.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.