Anyone else out there snowed in today?

God, don't I Wish!

The weather this year in Fairbanks (Alaska) has been disastrous.

Here we are, coming up on the middle of December, and there is perhaps half an inch of snow on the ground. It has been raining off and on for the past two weeks. (Makes for interesting driving conditions when it is raining, but the ground is still frozen -- water standing on top of ice on the roads. [rant]Believe it or not, my pet peeve isn't the idiots on their four wheel drive trucks who drive like maniacs, but instead it is the timid, white-knuckled drivers in perfectly capable automobiles (like a 4WD Subaru) who are so terrified at the thought of slippery pavement that they drive down the freeway (in the left lane, of course) at 25 MPH, knowing full well that if their tires were to slide even momentarily on the ice that their car would instantly burst into flames and explode, killing everybody and everything within a 200 yard radius.[/rant])

Anyway, this is disastrous. There are businesses in this town that are wholly dependent on snow and cold weather -- ski shops, shops that sell snow machines, auto repair shops that depend on cold weather to cause car problems. These businesses are in serious trouble. Hell, even I have a snow plowing business that has a total gross revenue this winter of $0.00, after spending $400 doing repairs and maintenance on my plow truck. There are recreational activities (skiing, snowmobiling, winter bicycling) that just aren't happening; recreational facilities (world-class cross country ski areas, downhill ski areas) that are closed to the public. Dog mushing is a very serious and big $$ sport in this area -- I think first prize in the Iditarod is something like $30,000 plus a new Dodge truck -- and nobody can even train.

Believe it or not, if the rain has stopped when I leave work tonight, I am going to wash my car in my driveway, in the middle of December. The temperature today is probably 50 degrees above normal.

This affects us the way that temperatures 50 degrees below normal would affect Florida.

So, no, I'm not snowed in. But I sure wish I were.

tanstaafl.