After an unusually warm fall, Alaska’s urban core is heading into the winter season looking wholly unseasonable, but there could be a Christmas bonus for homeowners hidden in the picture.
National Weather Service (NWS) records indicate heating degree days in the state’s largest city are down almost 32 percent from normal for the period from July 1 through Tuesday. Heating degree days provide the yardstick the NWS uses to measure energy use to heat buildings.
The warm weather should have cut your home use of natural gas by about a third, and thus produced a similar drop in your fuel bill.
At that rate, the average homeowner on an annual payment plan would have paid Enstar about $710 to date. But given that this year has been far from normal, about a third less gas should have been used, and your bill should have dropped accordingly.
A 32 percent change would drop the amount the average homeowner actually owes Enstar Natural Gas as of this date to a hair over $484, resulting in an average savings of $227 – enough to buy a new pair of ski boots for Christmas.
That’s a pretty nice Christmas blessing to make up for the unChristmas-like weather. The savings could, of course, disappear if January, February and March turn brutally cold, but that is not expected. The National Climate Center says there is a 40 to 50 percent probability Alaska weather will be above normal at least through February.
And by then things are starting to warm up.
If the climate prediction proves true, Anchorage area residents should be saving on their home heating bills all winter, but even if the weather returns to the NWS’s climatological “normal” – the average of the 20 years from 1981 to 2010 – the average homeowner will still be $225 ahead.
The only way consumers lose is if the winter months prove unusually cold compared to normal, and no one is predicting that in these days of global warming.
Actual savings will, of course, depend on the size of your home and how well it is insulated. Poorly insulated homes require more energy to heat then well-insulated homes. Large homes generally require more energy than small homes.
If your normal, annualized monthly gas bill is $100, you will have saved only about $144 to date. If your bill is $300 a month, you should have saved more than $430 on gas so far.
The biggest savings came during July and August when Anchorage saw record temperatures. A lot of people just turned off the heat in their homes because it was unnecessary.
Heating degree days were down 78 percent in July and 61 percent in August, but since little gas is burned in those months even in normal years, the change doesn’t mean much. What does is the 24 to 32 percent month drop in heating needs from September to now.
Every one of those months saw temperatures above normal, which was good for driving down gas bills but not so good for winter sports that depend on snow and cold. The Alyeska Resort in Girdwood – Alaska’s major ski area – has opened thanks to snowmaking, but the lower mountain looks bleak.
Still, for those willing to drive in search of snow, winter can be found to the north. Cross-country skiers reported good skiing at Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass above Palmer, and skaters say there are miles of good ice in the Nancy Lakes Recreation Area near Willow.
And the weather service is forecasting temperatures in Anchorage could drop to 10 degrees below zero by Friday night and into Saturday. The city hasn’t seen the temperature dip below zero since January, and then it bottomed out at 7 degrees below.
Anchorage hasn’t hit minus-10 since January of 2017 when two days fell to 15-degrees below.
Categories: News
If Willow plays it’s hand correctly there are many winter recreational opportunities as winter conditions south of us slowly disappear due to Climate Change.
I foresee a change in trail users just as commercial mushers once replaced sour dough trappers and placer miners in the Willow area.
The new user group will consist of cross country skiers, trail runners and fat bike enthusiasts along with ski joring and snowmaching.
There are hundreds of miles of trails in the Willow area and our temps are holding what little snow we received this year.
The willow-fishook road is plowed all the way to the Lucky Shot mine and access into the Talkeetnas is great right now.
Last report from the avalanche center showed mixed conditions in the hills…a few more inches of snow will help greatly.
It was nearly 10 below in Willow last night and I believe that the smaller tributaries like the Little Willow will soon be safe for travel.
Most areas in the west are dry this winter so we should be happy with what little winter there is to be had.
Lack of snow cover might make for some frost issues in Anc in another week or so.I imagine hillside would fair better.
My lawn is bare,but pretty sure waterline is plenty deep(wasilla)
I don’t know that our magnetic poles have anything to do with anything, nevermind they obviously have a lot to do with everything that happens on our planet. Since if we didn’t have magnetic pokes we wouldn’t be here. The magnetic poles have been shifting at a record pace since the 1990’s, now I honestly do not know what if any impact record setting shifting of our magnetic poles would have on the local climates of various areas, but I would suspect that there is some amount of correlation.
I know sime people do not believe in science, or at least any science they disagree with, but here is a clipping from a recent article about the magnetic pole shifting:
That slow wander has quickened of late. In recent decades, the magnetic north pole accelerated to an average speed of 55 kilometres (34 miles) per year.
The most recent data suggest its movement towards Russia may have slowed down to about 40 kilometres (25 miles) annually, but even so, compared to theoretical measurements going back hundreds of years, this is a phenomenon scientists have never witnessed before.
“The movement since the 1990s is much faster than at any time for at least four centuries,”
https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-magnetic-north-pole-is-drifting-towards-siberia-at-a-mysteriously-rapid-pace/amp
“Since if we didn’t have magnetic pokes we wouldn’t be here.”
Now if that ain’t the truth…
Wow, you got me there Steve a typo…nobody’s ever mistakenly hit the a key next to another one before certainly not you. Seriously if your criticism of what I write is that I made a single typo I thank you for your valuable contribution and will endeavour to not make such an obvious and glaring mistake ever again so as not to cause you any undue stress.
Have a good day Steve, I look forward to whatever nonsense you copy and paste today that is easily proven wrong with little to no effort.
Lighten up there Steve O…this is a story about the Bright Side.
Your “Magnetic Pokes” still do not Trump “Covfefe”.
I got a chuckle out of the “magnetic pokes” sentence. I at first thought you were making a funny, which was a good one. Then I saw the “sime people” sentence below it, which made me ponder.
Thank God for Global Warming, because now we can save the environment.