Hey, New Orleans, please send some of your snow to Anchorage

New Orleans has received more than twice the snowfall as Anchorage this winter — underscoring Southcentral Alaska’s meager snow season as much as the rare winter storm that pummeled that subtropical Louisiana city this week.

Since the beginning of meteorological winter on Dec. 1, Anchorage has seen just 3.8 inches of fresh snow while 8 inches have fallen on the New Orleans area, according to the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office.

The historic winter storm that brought blizzard conditions to areas along the Gulf Coast tied a 130-year-old snowfall record in New Orleans, with schools and interstates closed and Mardi Gras clean-up trucks called into action to plow snow in the French Quarter.

Florida set a new all-time snow record, with 10 inches recorded in Milton, near Pensacola.

Meanwhile, Anchorage has been icy, rainy and gray for much of January after one of the lowest-snow Decembers. The city is not having the lowest snowfall season on record: That happened during the winter of 1995-1996, when less than 10 inches of snow fell throughout the season.

It has been a nearly snowless January for Anchorage. As of Wednesday, the weather service was measuring just 3 inches of snow on the ground at the agency’s official station near the Anchorage airport.

In a typical winter, Anchorage would have had about 8 inches of snowfall at this point in January, said Pamela Pietrycha, a meteorologist in Anchorage. So far in January, the agency has measured 1.9 inches of snow at the Sand Lake station.

The average temperature for the month in Anchorage so far has been 27.5 F, making it the fifth-warmest January on record.

The forecast for the coming days doesn’t suggest much will change. A strong, warm-weather system from the Pacific Ocean is expected to bring moisture to the Anchorage area this weekend.

“We’re looking at the potential for rain, maybe some heavy rain, to be moving in,” Pietrycha said.

Next week, temperatures are expected to cool dramatically. That, Pietrycha said, means more ice.

Staci Feger-Pellessier and her husband live in Anchorage but snowbird in Lafayette, Louisiana. That area received about 10 inches of snow this week.

Louisiana is not prepared for snow, Feger-Pellessier said: There are no plows, homes aren’t insulated for serious cold, and people often don’t own winter gear at all.

“They just don’t have the equipment to handle it,” she said.

Even with heaters running all night, the century-old farmhouse the couple lives in was 50 degrees inside when Feger-Pellessier woke up to record-cold temperatures Wednesday morning.

Locals seem to view the snow as a rare wonder, she said. It’s a bit surreal, she continued, that the weather was far warmer with less snow at home in Anchorage.

“It’s insane that I said, ‘Let’s spend our winters in Louisiana to escape the cold of Alaska,‘ ” Feger-Pellessier said. “And here we are.”