Well Its finally here...........Today marks the shortest day of the year...Now maybe that doesn't mean much to you people below the 55'th latt. but here in my neck of the woods, it sure does. I live about 5 miles north of the Alaskan mountain range and haven't had direct sunlight in my house for almost 2 months, and that's OK, because they start getting longer now, and in a couple months I will be standing out in the yard basking in it. Course this begins the cold time of the year... temps in mid Jan. till the end of Feb. can sometimes get down right chilly, reaching as low as 60-80 below zero, I will start a thread around then titled, How Low can it Go...Peace from the Great White North

 

Sounds like my kind of place except for the lake of skiing. Hope you have a good one.

 

Captain? where have you been?!?!

 

So if the days are getting longer, howcum they are getting colder? Shouldn't longer days equal more sun which equals more heat?

 

Happy winter soltice.
May all your pagan celebrations be joyful.

 

It's the whole global warming thing.

Seriously, it takes this long for the earth to cool off, and another 3-4 months to start to warm back up. Once again proving the whole "man caused" global warming thing is a myth.

The sun is the reason for global warming, certainly not man. Just 8 short light mins away from earth is an uncontrolled nuclear fission explosion called the sun. If the sun just burps, hickups, just thinks about having a bad day, earth is nothing but a flaming marshmellow hurtling through space and we are all crispy critters.

Then again, I'm just a mindless, coffee drinking, yahoo, with an IQ of 51. What do I know?

 

the Earths orbit isnt perfectly round... 'round the sun. Combined with our tilted axis, our orbit is actually slightly closer to the sun during our winter months. http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/the_b.../Chapter2.html

 

Now stop trying to confuse peoples religion wiht the facts...

 

VERY GLAD for you!!! Yes, please- get warmer weather!!!

Holy Smokes (sorry Pagans) that is unbelievable to live in- I thougth metal hand tools break at like 30 below...

Do they still pour boiling water on the manifolds of the snowmobiles and stuff? The canadian army guys one time had me believing that their coats were survival items like buttons for soup- laces for jerky......so some of the stuff they told me was hard to tell right from what a maroon!!!

Yeah! If ya have nothin' else better to do, pm me or start a thread with what 'below' goings on .....

i run sled dogs again, did about five years back for money. This time- make the two dogs happy....
coldest we ran was about 20 below total (ice crystals form in the dog's breath vapor and the race gets stopped, lung injuries)

What the hell do diesels start like?? yeah- keep a thread on that fer sure!!

 

Thank you for making me smile

 

Fusion. The sun converts ~685 million tons of hydrogen per second to helium thru nuclear fusion.


I moved here 6 years ago just 2 degrees north in latitude, and I still can't get over the difference in the sun angle up here (42 degrees) at winter solstice compared to my old location near Philadelphia(40 degrees). Everything has an orange hue to it, and shadows are very long even at noon. It's only 2 degrees, but the difference is dramatic. I can't imagine what's it's like farther north.......has to be depressing. But hey, it gets better from here onward!

 

Things have gotten easier for people now, almost everyone I know has power to their house and half of them have running water and sewers...synthetic oils have helped with sleds, and all other engines with starting. No more draining the engine and bringing the bucket of oil in to set by the fire at night.
I don't now about this weather but it is changing, we don't get the snow like we used to and the temps might drop but they are not hanging down as long...I thing all we got here last year was around -65.

 

Well if that's all it gets I don't even need to pack long johns!

 

uh... , the coldest it ever gets here is like...25 at the MINIMUM..and that rarely happens.

 

Theres alot of things that make it worth it.....Northern lights can be pretty awesome, lay back in the snow and watch them rip...and it doesn't stay that cold that long we used to see 3-4 weeks of -60 and below...now were lucky to see a week....sure used to weed out the sissys. The rest of the winters can be fairly mild anywhere from 30 above to 30 below.....

I copied this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska pretty interesting site check it out...

Climate

The climate of Alaska, as would be expected given its location, is cold compared to the climate of the other 49 states; however, there is a great variety in the climate between the various regions, which one would also expect from a state as large as Alaska. Thunderstorms are uncommon in Alaska, while tornadoes have been a very rare event. Snow, of course, occurs everywhere in Alaska, although the amount varies considerably. The climatic areas of Alaska can best be divided into the following regions with the largest city in each region being typical of the climate expected in that region- the southeast panhandle (Juneau), the South Central (Anchorage), Western Alaska (Nome), the interior (Fairbanks), and the North Slope (Barrow).

The climate in Juneau and the southeast panhandle is best described as a "cooler version of Seattle". On an annual basis, this is both the wettest and warmest part of Alaska with milder temperatures in the winter and high precipitation throughout the year. Juneau averages over 50 inches of precipitation a year, while other areas receive over 275 inches.[3] This is also the only region in Alaska in which the average daytime high temperature is above freezing during the winter months.

The climate in south central Alaska, with Anchorage as a typical city, is mild by Alaska standards. This is due in large part to its proximity to the coast. While it does not get nearly as much rain as the southeast of Alaska, it does get more snow, although days tend to be clearer here. On average, Anchorage receives 16 inches of precipitation a year, with around 75 inches of snow, although there are areas in the south central which receive far more snow.

The climate of Western Alaska is determined in large part by the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. The temperature is somewhat moderate considering how far north the area is. This area has a tremendous amount of variety, especially when considering precipitation. The northern side of the Seward Peninsula is technically a desert (less 10 inches of precipitation annually), while some locations between Dillingham and Bethel average around 100 inches of precipitation.[3]

The climate of the interior of Alaska is best described as extreme. Some of the hottest and coldest temperatures in Alaska occur around the area near Fairbanks. The summers can have temperatures reaching into the upper 80s °F, while in the winter, the temperature can fall below -60° F. Precipitation is not much in the interior, often less than 10 inches a year, but what precipitation falls in the winter tends to stay the entire winter.

The climate in the extreme north of Alaska is what would be expected for an area north of the Arctic Circle: very cold in the winter and cool in the summer. Even in July, the average low temperature is barely above freezing in Barrow, at 34 °F (1 °C).[4] Precipitation is light in this part of Alaska, with many places averaging less than 10 inches a year, mostly in the form of snow which stays on the ground almost the entire year.