Thank you for checking in with Tom Skilling's 'Before the Forecast.'
Unfortunately, we are unable to bring you the webcam update at this time due to
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These pictures were shot on a hike this past Monday (July 3, 2006) through Portage Pass—which sits about 40 miles southeast of Anchorage and adjacent to the Portage Glacier. The weather was beautiful during this hike with my friend and meteorological colleague Tom MacPhail, who's currently an aviation forecaster at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Anchorage and a long-time Alaska resident. Portage Pass can be home to some of south-central Alaska's most volatile weather, including driving rains and channeled high winds (70+ m.p.h.) and blinding, often horizontally-falling winter snows. Pilots use the pass frequently, but do so with a careful eye toward the weather. Though the weather was beautiful on this hike, a marine-layer overcast shrouded Whittier on the Prince William Sound side of the pass from sunny skies to the east. Terrain drives many weather changes in Alaska and the sharp weather shift on this relatively short hike was quite fascinating! Portage Pass sits between the port town of Whittier on Prince William Sound and the Turnagain Arm, an inlet off Cook Inlet that hosts "boar" tides—visible as a single wave sweeping up the inlet which can reach 12 feet in height on occasion when winds are just right—and which boasts the largest North American tidal swings (as much as 35 feet from high tide to low tide) outside Canada's famous Bay of Fundy. Turnagain Arm, known to channel its own powerful winds, extends some 45 miles from its source at Anchorage on the Cook Inlet.
--Tom Skilling
Photos: Courtesy Tom MacPhail:
Tom Skilling takes a moment to send greetings from his Alaskan vacation and reports that it snowed for two days straight when he first arrived. He's already shoveled three feet of snow, but he's thoroughly enjoying his trip. He says "It's been magnificent!"
Today the WGN crew spent the day on the Glacier Bay Boat Tour, with fellow travelers at the Glacier Bay Lodge and the dedicated staff aboard our vessel, including National Park Service interpreter Mary Lou and native Chicagoan Joe Seebacher, who grew up just a few blocks from the WGN studios.
In the few days that we have been here, the most common denominator is just how friendly and welcoming everyone is here. Regardless of your origins, Alaska brings out the best in people.
The boat tour departed from Glacier Bay Lodge in Bartlett Cove and in one of the last truly wild areas of our country, we were able to see boundless amounts of native wildless right before our eyes. From the playful sea otters eating kelp to the cinnamon brown bear and her cubs taking a leisurely bath along the beach to the magnificent orca whales swimming alongside our boat.
However, the towering tidal glaciers proved the most awe-inspiring scene of the day as the thunderous sounds of calving pieces of ice hit the sea and the precipitous peaks of the glacier appeared as an entrance to a mighty fortress. It is indeed a force of nature to be reckoned with.
As we have discovered already at Lituya Bay, Alaska is full of examples of rejuvenation. It little more than 100 years ago, much of Glacier Bay was under ice. Now, it is teeming with wildlife and vegetation, undisturbed by the advancing world around it. It truly is one of the best kept secrets in Alaska.
Tomorrow, we will be traveling by train to the town of Seward on the Kenai peninsula where we will be talking to survivors of the 1964 tsunami and visiting Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park.
Note: Due to limited internet access, photos and videos of our daily adventures will be delayed.
July 9, 2005 Sitka
The WGN crew including Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling, producer Pam Grimes, web producer Amy Mowery and photographer Steve Scheuer begin our travels to Alaska today with a short stop over in Sitka, where we had the opportunity to interview Howard Ulrich, a survivor of the 1958 tsunami in Lituya Bay, near Glacier National Park.
47 years ago today, the father and his 7-year-old son survived the largest wave ever recorded, nearly 800 feet high, with a splash nearly 1,800 feet. It was so destructive that it literally stripped all vegetation off of the surrounding foothills near shore.
We then had the wonderful opportunity to meet with John Litten, who helped found the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center. This amazing facility is the only one of its kind in Alaska and birds from all over the state are flown here to recuperate from various life threatening accidents and are either reintroduced into the wild or spend the rest of their life in this safe, yet native habitat. Not only do bald eagles reside here, but also red tail hawks and owls to name a few.
The center takes in more than 200 birds a year and has an indoor flight training facility that allows the rehab center volunteers to monitor a bird's progress and if its ready to be released into the wild. This is truly a must see facility in Sitka. For more information, go to www.alaskaraptor.org
Tomorrow the WGN crew heads out to Lituya Bay to see for ourselves the site of the 1958 tsunami and how the area continues to leave footprints of this tremendous natural disaster.
If you've ever wondered about the hearty folks who take on one of the most challenging winter weather regimes in one of the most stunning arctic regions on this planet, you'll have a chance to meet some of them when we re-air our "Alaska: Where Winters are Really Winter" special this Saturday night (Christmas night, Dec. 25) at 9:30 pm (CST)--in the back half of our Nine O' Clock News program. We shot the program last January. What an incredible experience it was for Pam Grimes, videographer Kevin Myers and yours truly!
Our webmaster, Amy Mowery, is including a link here which will take you to a series of photos from the program. This was a project I'd always hoped to do. I first visited Alaska in 1980 and in my many trips back since then, I've always appreciated the way Alaskans approach the winter season. We focus on that in our program and visit with a number of folks who have moved from the Midwest to Alaska and love that incredible land--even in winter!
We were treated to an incredible northern lights display, which we share with you during the program as well as a discussion on aurora borealis with a University of Alaska geophysicist. We also spend time at Alaska's incredible Ice Hotel 70 miles northeast of Fairbanks in the heart of the state's Interior. It--and all of its contents---are made entirely of ice.
And, although it melted in this past summer's heat, it's being rebuilt again this winter. The hotel in part of Chena Hot Springs Resort and sits next to geothermal springs which bubble from the ground and which and remain incredibly warm (like the water of a warm bathtub) despite air temps of -20 to -30-degrees. The time we spent with Jon and Karin Nierenberg and their sled dogs in Healy, Alaska near Denali National Park and with veteran Alaska meteorologist Tom MacPhail, who invited us to his cabin within sight of the Alaska Range on a blustery winter day (the daytime temperature was near +5-degrees and the winds were gusting to 35-40 mph), was memorable. All these moments and our time in Girdwood with Chris Von Imhoff and Larry Daniels and the Alyeska Resort's avalanche control team in Girdwood, Alaska are included on the program. Hope you have a chance to check it out Christmas Night (Saturday) at 9:30 pm on WGN-TV.
-- Tom Skilling
