Anchorage has officially logged the snowiest January in its recorded history after another powerful winter storm pushed monthly snowfall totals past a long-standing record, according to data from the National Weather Service reported by Alaska Public Media and The Associated Press. As of 3 p.m. on January 27, the National Weather Service office in West Anchorage measured 39.7 inches of snow for the month, surpassing the previous January record of 34.4 inches set in 2000. The milestone came after the latest storm dropped 10.6 inches of snow on the city in a single day, compounding weeks of nearly nonstop accumulation.
What has stood out to forecasters is not just the depth of snow, but the amount of water contained within it. National Weather Service climate researcher Brian Brettschneider told Alaska Public Media that the snowpack holds nearly 2.64 inches of liquid precipitation, an unusually high figure for midwinter. Brettschneider noted that Anchorage has already received as much total precipitation in January as it typically sees from the start of the year through early May, adding that there have been nearly 10 years when the city failed to reach that amount even by the end of June.
The impacts across Anchorage were immediate and widespread. Forecasters warned that driving conditions would be especially dangerous during the evening commute, a concern that quickly played out on city streets. By late afternoon, Anchorage police reported 99 vehicles in distress—commonly referred to locally as “ditch divers”—along with 36 traffic collisions, including 12 with injuries, according to the Associated Press…