Winter is upon us and, thankfully we now have enough snow to insulate the ground and keep our plants from dying from frozen roots and our various pipes from freezing where they run 4 feet under the ground.
All of the pictures shown here were taken at about the same time - high noon solar time which is 1:00 pm Alaska time. Alaska has only one time zone and our state covers such a large area that there is room for 4 potential time zones so there is little concordance between where the sun is on the horizon and time of day. When there is only 4 hours of light in the winter and up to 21 hours of daylight in the middle of summer it hardly matters!
December, January and the first half of February are times when most VFR pilots don't fly: the temperatures are low, the hours of daylight are minimal and the lack of contrast in a snowy landscape makes recognition of landmarks and landing difficult and hazardous.
This shows the sun hiding behind the Alaska Range which blurring in the mid-distance from blowing snow and fog from open water on the Tanana River.
The next sequence highlights the major preoccupation of pilots during the snow months:
keeping the airplane wings swept of snow.
Allowing too much snow to accumulate may put excessive loads on the wings.
The next series shows my lane, trees heavily laden with snow - in bright sun,
and in dark mid-day overcast.
A snow scoop comes in handy moving the 16 inch accumulation of snow from our recent storm.
The author of this blog is demo-ing his technique!
Finally, as another storm hits our region today, another 4-5 inches have fallen and once again it's time to sweep the wings!
