Last few days were sunny and nice in the interior, daytime temps were in the mid 50's F (which feels like 75 F in the sun).
However my local area nighttime temperatures are still below freezing but hovering in the mid 20's F, way better than the low teens that were still hangin around despite the 18 hours + of sun exposure at the time.
On Wednesday the treasurer of the Ice Classic informed me that the Nenana River had standing water, as Joe pointed out on the current news that the Nenana River had just gone out yesterday.
On Thursday one of the regular collegues that I talk to on occasion is a Denali Nat'l Park staff member, had informed me that there is still three feet of standing snow at some of the campsites as they still can't see any of the drain pipes, and also mentioned people that have those early reservations starting on May 20 might be in for some bad news should there be a standing lake by the time they arrive at some campsite locations, the maintenance staff have been working practically non stop with the preparations because of the very late spring arrival.
The ground snow in my local area is down to merely patches now but no mosquitos (might see them as early as today), I have seen a few horseflies though.....Generally I usually will spot mosquitos by mid April on average.
All the snow that was in the median (between the four lane divided) of the Richardson Highway is now completely gone as of this past mid week, lakes and ponds are showing dark spots and rotting ice too, however they should have been almost completely thawed out by this time of year.
Between 1100pm to 330am it is one quarter of daylight as of right now in my local area, upon one more week it will not get dark in the Fairbanks area for the following 11 weeks.
Alaska bound travellers should be ok along the roadways as all the other smaller sloughs and creeks are flowing well with no significant ice jams to report.
Happy travels to all.
