January cold returns as snow makes for slick roads after weeks of warmth

An intense bout of snow as temperatures dropped led to slick roads around Anchorage on Monday after several weeks of unseasonably warm weather.

The early-morning shift back to snow, combined with warm asphalt, created icy surfaces that triggered dozens of stuck vehicles and crashes.

The Anchorage School District canceled all after-school sports, activities and community rentals due to “worsening road conditions,” officials said in an announcement before noon.

Prolonged wet, windy weather had saturated Southcentral Alaska through the weekend, leaving a trail of potholes, high water and avalanches. Temperatures began dropping toward January norms Monday morning, and snow returned to Anchorage and Mat-Su.

Slick conditions were reported on the Glenn Highway and throughout the city. As of midafternoon Tuesday, Anchorage police reported 54 crashes and 42 vehicles in distress.

Several collisions were reported on the Glenn Highway on Monday afternoon including one near Palmer and another on the northbound Glenn at the first Knik River bridge, according to the state 511 road conditions site. Just before noon, Alaska State Troopers said they responded to a semi leaking fuel at Mile 32 of the highway after it slid on ice and went into a ditch. A pickup then also slid into the semi’s trailer, causing minor injuries, troopers said.

All told, troopers in Mat-Su responded to 17 crashes on Monday, “with multiple of them requiring transportation to the hospital” and noted that number didn’t reflect responses by Palmer or Wasilla police.

Citing hazardous weather conditions and lingering power outages, Mat-Su district officials closed schools in the Susitna Valley on Monday and Tuesday. Matanuska Electric Association was reporting more than 1,400 members without power Monday evening, including most of Talkeetna.

State transportation officials said plow crews were beginning to clear Petersville Road near Trapper Creek from Mile 7 to Mile 14 after more than 2 feet of snow blanketed the area, making for impassable conditions. They warned that travel wasn’t advised on the Parks Highway south of Cantwell due to heavy drifting snow creating narrow traffic lanes.

Road crews were contending with “extremely slick” conditions around the region after 2 1/2 days of high wind and heavy rain followed by Monday’s temperature drop and coating of snow, said Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy.

“Crews worked all weekend with thaw trucks and pothole patching to keep roads drivable and had to switch back over to sanders in record time,” McCarthy said.

Days of rain cratered roads around the region with tire-blowing potholes.

The Mobile Tire Guy in Anchorage registered 130 calls between Saturday morning at 5 a.m. and Monday morning around 10 a.m., according to co-owner Chasity Blanchard. Her husband, Kyle Spernak, had been busy all weekend on repairs and replacements after drivers hit the new potholes that opened around town.

“We usually do have pothole season but it’s not until April,” Blanchard said.

The forecast is calling for potentially subzero temperatures Wednesday night into Thursday morning, replacing the past few weeks of unusually balmy readings.

Warmth, a major windstorm and rain eroded the official snowpack from 8 inches around the December holidays to nothing at all by Sunday.

“It went to zero for maybe 12 hours there,” said Anchorage-based National Weather Service meteorologist Tracen Knopp. “With this snow band that came over us this morning — they’re actually out there measuring it right now, but we got I would estimate maybe a quarter inch of snow.”

The agency received reports of several inches of snow in other parts of the city, he said.

Until the latest storm system arrived, a series of atmospheric rivers deluged the region, melting most accumulation at lower elevations and coating the mountains with heavy, wet snow that triggered a number of large avalanches.

At Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, a cornice on a ridge above Glacier Bowl gave way Sunday afternoon, sending a massive slide all the way down to the Main Street run, according to Duane Stutzman, Alyeska’s mountain general manager.

There were no reports of anyone caught in the slide, Stutzman said Monday morning, adding crews plan to do one more search of the debris pile, then spend the day on avalanche mitigation and regrooming the debris path.

“We had only one guest up there. He happened to be the reporting party. Talk about luck,” he said.

A large slide shut down traffic on the Parks Highway on and off since Friday, when an avalanche blocked both lanes of traffic north of Cantwell.

The highway was closed again Sunday evening but reopened Monday with pilot car operations in place to escort the public through the area, according to the state’s 511 site.

Hatcher Pass Road in the Talkeetna Mountains near Palmer remains closed due to avalanches and avalanche danger just past Skeetawk Ski Area until at least Tuesday, according to the state transportation department.

The National Weather Service registered a high of 46 degrees at its offices near Anchorage’s airport on Sunday, tying a record set in 2014. The Alaska Zoo reported bears Oreo and Izzy lumbered out of their dens at least briefly over the weekend.

Historic winds and warmth battered Anchorage and the region earlier this month, leaving some without power for days.

By last week, parts of the Deep South, including Mississippi and Louisiana, saw more snow on the ground than Anchorage’s diminished pack could muster.

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

A new weather system bringing cold air is pushing the warmer, moist air to the east, Knopp said Monday.

“A low-pressure system with an Arctic air mass is wrapping around this low-pressure system and bringing cold air over Southcentral Alaska,” he said. “Cooler air is flowing in, and we’ll just see a gradual temperature change over the next few days.”