Nome offers stark contrast to El Nino

While Clark County and environs bask in one of the warmest winters in modern times, we can be thankful we aren’t experiencing the chill of the north in Nome, Alaska. Nome, a city of 3,500 perched on the frozen shore of Norton Sound — an arm of the Bering Sea — is a place to find refrigerator weather.

The Nome Nugget, a weekly newspaper, reported Nome’s high temperature Jan. 16 at 8 degrees. The National Weather Service at Nome said the low temperature was 23 degrees below zero on Jan. 18, and peak wind gust for the week was 33 mph. Thanks to El Niño, January failed to produce a single day of freezing weather in Vancouver. The Portland Weather Bureau said that city experienced its third-warmest January in 70 years, with an average high temperature of 44.8 degrees.

Worries already have begun about reduced snowpack in the Cascades, and substandard water flow on streams and rivers that provide irrigation for crops and hydroelectric power. The culprit, El Niño, brings warmer equatorial Pacific Ocean waters off the west coast of South America. The phenomenon occurs every two to six years. Storms tend to track south, and “the Northwest tends to stay relatively dry,” Jon Lea, hydrologist, told Columbian reporter Erik Robinson. Lea is with the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Nome, located 102 miles south of the Arctic Circle, has no such concerns. It is well-suited to host the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race, a grueling run of nearly 1,200 miles that starts in Anchorage the first Saturday of March. Temperature extremes can range from plus 45 to minus 60.

The Iditarod, incidentally, commemorates the lifesaving sled-dog relay in 1925 that brought serum to Nome to combat a diphtheria outbreak. In those days, this gold mining area could be reached only by dog sled, sea (when not frozen) or single-engine plane. There were no roads connecting with other areas of Alaska.

Remote, even today

Although there is a modern jet airport today, there are 350 miles of roads in the greater Nome area, but none linking with main highways and other Alaskan cities. The Nome road network is open from mid-May to the end of October. A newly released state study recommends building a 500-mile road along the Yukon River connecting Nome to the main-stem Elliot Highway in the interior. The estimated cost is between $2.3 billion and $2.7 billion.

The average January minimum temperature in Nome is 1.8 degrees, the maximum average 13 degrees. The annual snowfall average is 56.2 inches.

Copies of the Nugget, provided by Alaska native and current Lake Shore resident Stan Patty, carry stories reflecting life in the harsh climate. Examples:

Nov. 12 Nugget: Contracts were awarded to Bonanza Fuel for the City of Nome and Nome Public Schools. Heating oil will be $4.139 per gallon and unleaded gasoline, $4.03 per gallon.

Nov. 19 Nugget: The first winter storm hit Nome with more than a foot of snow. Twenty homes were evacuated because of high wave surge, but slush ice protected others.

Jan. 7 Nugget: Subsistence hunters were frustrated when the shaggy musk ox moved away from their traditional habitats near Nome and Anvil Mountain to more distant points.

Jan. 21 Nugget: Two St. Lawrence Island residents attempting to ride a single snowmachine (snowmobile) from Savoonga to Gambell were rescued after being stranded overnight and much of the next day on the 50-mile trail. Other than suffering frostbite and mild hypothermia, the couple was in good condition, troopers said. They were hospitalized, however.

Chill or not, most Nomeites like their lifestyle. My wife, Marilyn, and I found that out during a visit to the city with Stan and Mabs Patty over the 75-degree Fourth of July in 2008.

If you’re tempted to chill out in a northern climate, Nome’s predicted temperatures today called for a low of 10 above and a high near 20 degrees. That should be just right for the El Niño-weary residents of Clark County.