Heavy winter so far in Alaska. The forlorn (bureaucrats and politicians live there) and tourist overrun capitol of Juneau has had almost seven feet of snow so far. Eight boats have sunk in the harbor due to it and well as several roofs, as the snow has often mixed with ice. Power outages and avalanches in many parts of the state, with the latter closing roads and mountain passes. Extreme cold in the north as Fairbanks is hanging out at -45F, while the Copper Valley is a balmy -35F.

Here on Kodiak the winds have rarely stopped howling since November. It took us three days to get off of the island to go back east for Christmas. Often we have have had 30 sustained/50 gust wind days. We have a good amount of ground cover here as we have had two straight up blizzards. One lasted for two days. It looks like "The Shining" winter scenes outside.