Solstice Arrives, But Winter Got Here First

At winter solstice, the Arctic Circle represents more than a dotted line on the map. On that day, it becomes the line north of which the sun won't rise. On winter solstice, December 21 this year, the sun will make an appearance for five-and-a-half hours in Anchorage, a little less than four hours in Fairbanks, and zero hours at the Arctic Circle and points north. The darkest day in the Northern Hemisphere is officially listed as the beginning of winter, but you'd have a hard time telling someone in Barrow--where the sun set November 19 and won't rise until January 23--that winter hasn't started yet. Alaskans have a different definition for the onset of winter, and it depends on who you ask.

Jan Curtis of the Alaska Climate Research Center at the Geophysical Institute said a good Alaska definition of winter is the day when our maximum temperatures don't exceed 32 degrees Fahrenheit. When that day comes, he explained, all precipitation is in the form of snow.

According to Alaska weather records from 1949 to 1998, September 23 is the average date the high temperature stays below 32 in Barrow. Fairbanks typically gets no warmer than the freezing point on October 17, followed by Nome (October 24), Anchorage (November 5), Seward (November 30), and Juneau (December 27). Using Curtis's definition, winter never happens in Ketchikan, which has a lowest average maximum temperature of 37 on January 5.

I asked Glen Woodall of the National Weather Service in Fairbanks his personal definition of winter. He said winter is here when the snow stays on the ground. Woodall checked the 1998 weather summaries and found that at least a trace of snow fell and remained in Fairbanks on October 14, in Barrow on October 13, in Anchorage on October 17, and in Juneau on November 27. No snow stuck in Ketchikan.

Pat Holloway, a horticulturist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, looked at winter from the perspective of Alaska plants. Holloway said she's heard of spruce trees shutting down their growth in late July, instead using the sun's energy to form buds that will become needles in the spring. Some plants, such as raspberries, keep chugging along until September and even early October, but snowfall either shocks them into dormancy or kills them.

Wood frogs would certainly argue that winter begins before December 21. The only amphibians in the Interior find their winter homes in forest duff well before the arrival of snow. Brian Barnes, a professor at the Institute of Arctic Biology, said large wood frogs dig into forest litter in mid-August, while smaller frogs hop around until the first frost hits, usually in mid-September.

For Arctic ground squirrels, winter starts in the middle of summer, Barnes said. That's when squirrels begin eating everything they can to store up fat and protein for the winter. In studies done at Toolik Lake on Alaska's North Slope, adult female ground squirrels settle down for the winter in early August, while males may not hibernate until early October.

Winter begins about the first of October for inland brown bears, said Harry Reynolds, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Like other hibernators, the bears begin preparing for winter at the end of July and early August, eating everything they can. Black bears generally den up in mid- to late-September, Reynolds said, though any species of bear may put off hibernation if there's a good source of food nearby.

Non-hibernators like me like to mark the winter solstice with a bonfire, lit sometime near the exact moment when the North Pole begins its nod back to the sun. Woodall of the Weather Service said that moment happens at 4:58 p.m. Alaska Standard Time on Dec. 21.