The town of Pelican calls itself \u201cclosest to the Fish,\u201d but today it\u2019s also closest to the snow.<\/p>\n
A yardstick will just about disappear in the drifts of the Chichagof Island town, which received 31.7 inches of snowfall from a storm that draped northern Southeast with a blanket of white on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever received this much steady snowfall,\u201d said Pelican City Clerk Kelly Chapman, who on Thursday morning was looking from her windows at an expanse of unbroken snow.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service confirmed Chapman\u2019s guess \u2014 this much snow has never before fallen on Pelican over a two-day stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big winner was Pelican,\u201d meteorologist David Levin said from his Juneau office.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, 16 inches of snow was recorded by observers \u2014 the No. 5 highest snowfall total in a single day. On Wednesday, 15.7 inches fell. That was the No. 6 highest snowfall total in a single day.<\/p>\n
According to reports from a variety of sources, the heaviest band of snowfall stretched from east to west, roughly along Icy Strait. It enveloped Gustavus with 10.5 inches of snow and Hoonah with 9.6 inches. <\/p>\n
It dropped 11 inches on downtown Juneau, 13.3 inches in the Mendenhall Valley, 15 at Lena Point and 22 inches (the city\u2019s high mark) at the Shrine of St. Therese.<\/p>\n
North and south of that band \u2014 which reached from the Gulf of Alaska to the Canadian border \u2014 snowfall totals were much lighter. Skagway only measured 1 inch of snow in town and 6 inches in White Pass. In the city of Sitka, little snow was reported, but some areas outside of town did measure a half-foot or so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty wide variation there,\u201d Levin said. <\/p>\n
Haines reported 9.1 inches in town and 17.8 inches at Mud Bay, but accumulations dropped off as they approached the Canadian border. The Haines Customs Station, usually one of the snowiest places in Southeast, measured only 2 inches of accumulation.<\/p>\n
The two-day storm was the capital city\u2019s biggest in about two years, but it was relatively average for Juneau in the long term; it set no records for daily or storm accumulation.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the snow was light and powdery, which meant tree branches weren\u2019t endangered, and shoveling was easy.<\/p>\n
At Eaglecrest Ski Area, officials reported about 8 inches of snow at the base of the mountain and more at the top. They were spending Thursday assessing snow conditions, clearing unstable areas and grooming slopes ahead of what is likely to be a busy weekend.<\/p>\n
The Ptarmigan lift will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday for pass-holders, manager Matt Lillard said by phone. Whether it opens again will depend on how it withstands the demands of skiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still definitely on the low spectrum as far as snow goes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Regardless, Eaglecrest will be on its normal winter schedule this weekend, Lillard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe skiing is going to be fun tomorrow,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The forecast calls for sunny conditions and below-freezing temperatures to continue through next week. Juneauites who shoveled their sidewalks on Thursday may have to do it again, however \u2014 the forecast calls for high winds on Friday to create blowing drifts.<\/p>\n
In Pelican, things are going well, Chapman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was stressful for the snow-removal crew, but everybody\u2019s pretty patient and understanding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The town of 79 winter residents didn\u2019t lose power, and no boats sank in the harbor, Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all doing good,\u201d she said. \u201cIn remote locations like this, you\u2019re used to no help. We\u2019re tough.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The town of Pelican calls itself \u201cclosest to the Fish,\u201d but today it\u2019s also closest to the snow. A yardstick will just about disappear in the drifts of the Chichagof Island town, which received 31.7 inches of snowfall from a storm that draped northern Southeast with a blanket of white on Tuesday and Wednesday. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7558"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}