Radio Script
1998

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La Niña a La Dud?
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STORY: Earlier this fall, skiers, snow machiners and dog mushers throughout Alaska leapt for joy upon hearing predictions for lots of snow this winter. The snow, along with cold temperatures, was to have come courtesy of La Niña, the cold weather system that typically follows an El Niño.

But as Thanksgiving came and went, and as Christmas looms close, many are wondering--where's the snow? As of mid-December, barely 12 inches of the white stuff blanketed the Fairbanks area. And while Anchorage has more snow, the amounts are far less than normal. The lack of white stuff has people like Fairbanks snow machiner Juan Goula adding snow to his Christmas wish list.

GOULA: "Most snow machiners, most snow mobilers in the Interior are very disappointed. We've been waiting for a good snowfall for the past three years almost and this year has been the worst so far. Yes it has been quite frustrating. But there's nothing we can do about it, we just have to wait for Mother Nature to help us out."

That may be a while. In a normal year, much of Alaska should have at least two feet of snow by now, says Rick Thoman, the lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. But this isn't a normal winter. It's a La Niña winter, and by rights there should be even more snow on the ground. Still, Rick Thoman is sticking with his forecast, at least for now.

THOMAN: "Snowfall over most of the Interior is substantially below normal and certainly below the normal for a La Niña winter. But it's not unusual to have light snowfall early in a La Niña winter. All and all it's not necessarily going any differently than we might have expected."

The reason for the lower than expected snowfall has much to do with the engine that drives Alaska's weather, the so-called Aleutian Low. This massive low pressure system in the North Pacific Ocean should have moved eastward by now, bringing with it winter storms. But this year, for reasons scientists don't fully understand, the normally powerful system has not moved from its spot in the Bering Sea. Essentially, it's stuck. With the Low stranded, it has had the secondary effect of blocking the northerly flow of upper air called the jet stream.

THOMAN: "That is another reason why the precipitation over Fairbanks has been so low. That jet stream has remained far to the south and because of the Aleutian Low, it has never been allowed to come up into Interior Alaska. We get our heaviest snowfalls when the jet stream can come up from the southwest over the open waters of the Bering Sea and then over the Interior, and that has just not happened."

So has La Niña been a La Dud? Forecaster Rick Thoman doesn't think so. He says those who love snow ought to be careful about what they wish for because those wishes might just come true.

OUTRO: For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Doug Schneider, reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.