I must admit that I am no meteorologist, nor do I posses more than the basic weather-predicting abilities (i.e. it is cloudy, therefore it might rain). I have lived in Anchorage all my life and am no stranger to bizarre and variable weather conditions.
The weather page of the Anchorage Daily News confounds me, though. In the section devoted to precipitation, the current measurement of precipitation is snowfall, as opposed to rainfall. I concede that Alaska does enjoy six to eight months of winter, and perhaps the editors of the weather page and the meteorologists at the NOAA station in Sand Lake are snow enthusiasts, but has not the time for snow passed? With record-setting high temperatures and catastrophic snow melt, are we not enduring the season called by our Lower 48 compatriots "summer," a season that Anchorage has missed for several years?
I too pine for the cold, gray, and bleak of winter, my dear editors and meteorologists, but I believe the time is nigh to report precipitation as rainfall.
— Connor Scher
Anchorage
Anchorage