It won’t make the skiers happy to hear it, but Juneau’s early snow is no guarantee of a snowy winter. In fact, the reverse might be true.
According to figures compiled by the National Weather Service here, this year’s Oct. 16 snowfall was the sixth-earliest recorded in Juneau since 1936. The 5.1 inches that fell on the airport marked the first time since 1940 that Juneau had snow before Fairbanks.
Between 1945 and 2015, Juneau averaged 95.6 inches of snow every winter. Recent winters have been far below that figure, but so have winters with early snowfall. Of the five years with first snowfall before this year, three were well below normal, one was close to normal, and one was above normal.
• In 2000, 2 inches of snow fell on Oct. 2, but the winter went on to have Juneau’s second-least snow ever; only 28.7 inches fell at the airport.
• In 1997, 1.9 inches of snow fell on Oct. 13. This was another bad winter for snowfall, with only 35.6 inches at the airport — the city’s fifth-lowest total. (Last winter was No. 4.)
• In 1974, 0.8 inches fell on Oct. 2. That winter was close to normal, with 101.3 inches of snow.
• In 1958, 0.9 inches fell on Oct. 7. That winter ended up having 127.8 inches of snow.
• In 1939, 4 inches fell on Oct. 6. That winter went on to record 58.6 inches of snow, less than 60 percent of normal.
Since the winter of 2009-2010, Juneau has had an average 1945-2015 snowfall only twice.
While those precedents are cold comfort to skiers and snow-lovers, those who love winter can be heartened by the fact that under proper statistical analysis, there’s almost no correlation between early snow and low (or high) seasonal totals. In other words, using just five data points isn’t enough (over 80 years of data) to draw a trend.
The latest weather service forecast shows no sign of snow in the immediate future — or rain, for that matter. Sunny or partly sunny weather is expected to continue through Thursday, and given the dry start to October, Juneau is well on its way to another record of note — the driest October in recorded history.
Through Monday evening, just 2.5 inches of precipitation (rain and melted snow) had been recorded at the airport. In a normal month, Juneau would have seen 6.68 inches during that time. The record for driest October is held by 1950, which saw just 3.28 inches of precipitation — none of it snow.
