Homer Alaska - News

Although it might have seemed that Homer endured a rainy spell as long as Anchorage, a look at local weather records since June 1 shows Homer actually didn't come close to breaking Anchorage's wet summer record.

Still, slightly colder and wetter weather has affected local farmers.

"It's been very challenging," said Nikolaevsk produce farmer Charles Crampton, owner of AK Chickweed farm.

Last week, Anchorage set a record for consecutive days with a trace of rain. From July 18 to Aug. 17, it had 31 days straight, according to the National Weather Service, breaking a record of 27 straight days of rain set in 1951.

A day or two when it didn't rain kept Homer off the record books. At the Homer Airport weather station, the worst run of rainy days was six days this month, Aug. 3-8. The longest stretch of clear days was five days, June 28-July 2.

A station at Fritz Creek showed wetter weather, with 10 days of rain from June 5 to 14. Fritz Creek also had a longer stretch of clear days with 11 days, July 18-28.

Until the pattern broke last Tuesday, southern Alaska had been caught in a persistent low pressure system hanging on over the Bering Sea.

"We've just been getting wave after wave rotating around the low and bringing rain into southern Alaska," said Christian Casell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, Anchorage forecast office.

Western Russia and Europe have been locked under a high pressure system, bringing weeks of hot, dry weather.

"We've gotten the short end of the stick in terms of the bad weather, the big low stationary over the Bering Sea," Cassell said.

The National Weather Service doesn't keep records for the lower Kenai Peninsula. That information comes from Weather Underground, an online database at www.wunderground.com. Weather Underground archives data for six stations in the Kachemak Bay area: the Homer Airport station; three Meteorological Assimilation Date Ingest System, or MADIS, sites at Bradley River, the Homer Spit and Fritz Creek; the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve buoy on the Spit, and a private weather station near Fritz Creek. Records for those stations can be viewed at the WunderMap at the Homer Weather Underground page.

Temperatures for June and July ran a few degrees down from the historical average. In June, the historical average high is 5.3 degrees, with this year's average temperature 54.6 degrees. For July, the historical average high is 60.3 degrees, with this year's average high temperature 57 degrees.

For greenhouse growers like Crampton, who's been growing for the Homer Farmers' Market since 2003, that meant feeding the woodstove. He likes to keep his 48-feet-by-34-feet greenhouse about 72 degrees during the day and 68 at night and grows cucumbers, tomatoes and tomatillos.

"This has been the absolute worst one, the wettest one," he said.

In summers past he could count on some days he didn't have to heat. This year he heated almost every day, burning up 10 cords of wood and spending $400 on coal.

Wetter summers mean moister greenhouses, a problem Anchor Point produce farmers Dawn and John Hoxie of Alaskan Naturally Grown and Crampton both mentioned.

"With the wet weather, it does have a tendency to mold things in the greenhouse," Dawn Hoxie said.

"A lot of days I spend four hours going through the greenhouse pulling out diseased leaves," Crampton said. "I felt fortunate this summer staying ahead of it."

Hoxie also grows cold crops outdoors.

"I didn't have any trouble with that except for the weeds," she said "It's taking a little longer for it to mature. They're starting to catch up now. … The hot weather crops that everyone wants, well, they're going to have to wait."

The colder, cloudier weather has a side benefit: crops like spinach and mustard don't bolt as much. Hoxie has been gardening since she was in grammar school and in Anchor Point for 25 years. This is her seventh year at the Farmers' Market. In some years she might get three spinach crops — three cycles of spinach that grows after being picked. This year she got one harvest, but in nice years she might not get any. Her potatoes are blooming nicely now.

"My lettuce is doing just fine," she added. "The water didn't seem to bother it at all."

For other vegetation, the weather didn't affect crops at all.

"It made things late — and the weeds grow beautifully," Hoxie said.

"My chickweed is doing really well this year," Crampton said.

With the long damn, cold spell breaking last Tuesday just as the cruise ship Amsterdam boarded passengers to leave, southcentral Alaska should be looking at a mix of rain and sun, Cassell said. Instead of a long, steady run of wet days, we might see alternating periods of sunshine and rain. The Pacific Ocean has shifted from an El Nino pattern to a La Nina. In an El Nino, the equatorial Pacific has unusually warm surface ocean temperatures, while in a La Nina, the Pacific has unusually cold surface ocean temperatures. That could mean cooler winter weather, near-normal precipitation and snowfall a little above average, Cassell said.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.