The first snowfall of the year struck last week, blanketing Wrangell in white stuff.
While the poor man’s answer to the eternal question of how much snow could be as simple as looking out the window, authorities in Wrangell have been without specific snowfall data for months. Contracted observers for the National Weather Service collect rain totals at the airport. However, the service relies on a network of volunteer observers to collect snow totals, according to Kimberley Vaughan, an observation program leader and forecaster with the Service’s Juneau office.
Vaughan knows exactly the sort of people who make the best observers, too.
“People who have good attention to details,” she said. “Scientists who are used to collecting data are great, but they don’t have to be, people who are enthusiastic about the weather. We have some great people who are excited about the weather. I wouldn’t call them weather nerds, but they enjoy being able to know things first.”
In other towns across Southeast, they have placed weather observatories at local water plants. Volunteers who are called away for medical procedures or other scheduled or sudden departures must arrange for neighbors to come help, Vaughan said.
“We’ve lost a few places,” she said. “Wrangell is one of the bigger communities that does not have a volunteer. We would love to have more than one in Wrangell, actually.”
Wrangell has been without regular daily snowfall observations since January 2012.
Under ideal conditions, the service would maintain one observer for every 20 square miles across the entire country, but in a state with as much rugged area as Alaska (570,641 square miles, according to the U.S. Census), the ideal would be slightly more, Vaughan said.
“We can go thousands of feet of elevation in as little as a mile,” she said.
While volunteers aren’t paid, they are entitled to the occasional National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association mug, tee shirt, or other merchandise, Vaughan said.
The Service relies on information to enhance the accuracy of the forecasts, Vaughan added.
“It improves the forecast over time,” she said. “It’s because of the data we collected that we know we got it wrong.”
The Service predicted on Monday no snow for Thanksgiving, in part because of a mass of warm air pushing up from parts south. Any precipitation would likely fall as rain, said Pete Boyd, a long-term forecaster with the service.
“We’re going to see the rain,” he said. “By Friday night, we’ll get another cool pool of air.”
Temperatures could be in the low 20s or lower, Boyd added.
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