Not Good
At 10:30PM CST my local temperature is 38°F; Nome, Alaska is 36°F; and Anchorage is 45°F.
Since they decided not to switch to Fairbanks, the weather has been making the trail a little more friendly, but now things are back in the warming trend as the Arctic Vortex has dropped to the South again.
This is really bad news for the Siberian teams [Ellis, Ramstead, Norris, and Dabakk] and for John Baker’s team. These teams really need temperatures of near 0°F to be comfortable. They will be very slow for the first third of the race below the Alaskan Range.
Four-time winner Jeff King is taking a helmet with him, specifically for the descent into the Dalzell Gorge, and Jim Lanier, the oldest musher at 73, is training in hockey pads.
Ed Stielstra of Michigan has decided not to race. There was no reason given.
They should assign the bib numbers tonight, so I can post the list tomorrow.
6 comments
They’re going to need wheels on their sleds if the weather continues this way.
The original Iditarod vaccine run was because the temperature was too cold for horses. This is a horse trail. The temperature isn’t below 40° until you are North of the Alaskan range, and won’t freeze water until the Yukon River at Ruby.
The end is a mess as they are getting freezing rain and sleet around the Norton Sound.
They are talking raincoats and umbrellas for the start tomorrow.
Nome, Anchorage, Cinco Bayou… and Houston, all within 10°F of the same temperature, and none of them freezing. What is wrong with this picture?
I had the misfortune to end up in an argument (I didn’t start it) with Stella’s ex last weekend. Among his many other eccentricities, he is a global climate change denier. He had the nerve to criticize my “belief” as being akin to a religion… what, I wonder, Father, Son and Holy Inexplicable Temperatures? I’m afraid I said some things rather disparaging of both his intellect (IRL he is not a stupid man) and the ease with which he is bamboozled (certainly on this topic). We may not be on speaking terms now. Maybe that’s no bad thing…
Anyone who thinks it is normal for it to be 30° colder in Rochester, New York than Nome, Alaska at the end of February has lost the thread of reality. The permafrost isn’t ‘perma’ any more, and people are seeing their cabins and towns sink into the mush. Alaskans may have to start buying refrigerators instead of just cutting a hole in the permafrost.
The US National Academy of Science and the UK Royal Society have just issued papers that flat out say that all of the credible evidence says the earth is getting warmer and humans are causing it by burning fossil fuels. No hedging, they flat say it.
I don’t have to believe it, I can check the local weather throughout the world and see the temperatures for myself.
But… but.. those are scientists. What do they know about science? Everybody knows that the average grade school dropout Faux News watcher knows more about science than, like, actual scientists, right? Right?!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
That’s the real problem, Badtux.