Nearly a month after the land-fast ice went out at Nome in Western Alaska, the ice has left the shore in Barrow, also known as Utqiagvik, population 4,383.
Summer has arrived in America’s northernmost city at coordinates 71° 17′ 33″ N, 156° 47′ 18″, and there is now open water in front of the town that is 3,481 straight-line air miles from Washington, D.C. For most of the year, the ice hugs the shore and extends far out into the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. But now, the sound of water lapping the shore has returned until about December, when it will freeze again.
Watch the ice leave in this video, a collection of still shots taken every five minutes from the camera mounted on the Wells Fargo Bank building:
The camera is approximately 65 feet above sea level and looks over the shoreline, pointed approximately northward. It’s operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
You can watch the continuously updated shore ice and ice floes disappear at the video at this link.
The temperatures in Barrow will be warm this week, with a high of 41 F on Monday but as warm at 62 F on Wednesday, with lows in the mid 30s all week, as the Nalukataq Festival is underway to celebrate the whale hunting traditions of the town.
Watch the video of the radar image of that same ice breaking away:
It’s so much easier to hunt whales when the ice is far gone. We look forward to the earlier departure of shore ice.
In Gambell, crews would go whaling and sometimes get cut off as the ice would come back. Sometimes for weeks.
?
Better hold on to your wallets everyone.
Soon the ice will return and we will have to pay for another fiber optic cable repair that will be dredged up just like clockwork.
A very effective tool to channel funds into the politician owned communications service company.
Paul Pelosi venture capitalist has major share ownership in all government subsidized programs.
He must be a genius to know which horse to bet on…
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