It's sort of Spring in Prudhoe Bay

Here ia a fall picture of Toby from a couple of years ago. It was the only local brown bear pictures I could find in my stash of pictures about work. I didn't take it so either Dave or Russell must have e-mailed it to me.

Today was our first day of 'spring' measured Prudhoe style. The weather was sunny and -2 when I came to work a little before 6am. It warmed up just a bit and by 8:30 am the ice fog was so thick the jet couldn't land. The fog is patchy though and by 9:30 am it was clear & sunny. Patches of fog keep drifting through, I hope the rest of todays flights come & go as needed

We actually had the first sign that spring was arriving a few days ago, when Security put out a warning that a brown bear had been sighted on the field. The brown bears do hibernate all winter (unlike the polar bears), so one out and about was the first sign of spring.

Don't let this picture fool you, spring in Prudhoe is WHITE. The snow is just starting to melt on top during the sunny days, and freeze into solid ice at night. Walking across the parking lot is a nightmare, worse then walking on a frozen lake.

According to the Wunderground.com, we're up to 21+ hours of visible light each day and 17 hours & 43 min of actual sun above the horizon. Tomorrow the sun will be up another 10 min and 28 seconds longer then today, so 24 hours of sunlight will happen shortly.

HAPPY SPRING!