“We are very proud of our snow.”
Wendy Zwickl, Meteorological technician in Valdez, Alaska
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| Photo by Nat Wilson (Creative Commons) |
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Folks in Valdez, Alaska (population 3,792) can’t get enough of the white stuff. In this town known as the Snow Capital of Alaska, the average snowfall is 326 inches per year. So far this year the town has gotten 400 inches, and townspeople want more.
Currently, there are 80 inches of snow on the ground. Plows have cut a high-walled maze through city streets and dumped the snow in parking lots, creating a six-story-high snow mound in one. The mound has become a community bulletin board of sorts. On Valentine’s Day romantics wrote love messages in red food coloring, and recently someone advertised an upcoming performance by Chinese acrobats. The mound isn’t going away any time soon. Remnants will still be around for the town’s 4th of July Pink Salmon Festival.
So why do folks want more snow? Because the town received 560.7 inches of snow in 1989-1990, and residents believe this winter can break that record. They might be right. They only have 160 inches to go and three months to get there. After all, the snow doesn’t stop falling in Valdez until June.
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