Graves at the historic St. Michael cemetery in Alaska are eroding due to increased storms and erosion, prompting an archaeologist to recover exposed remains and coordinate efforts to re-bury them. Tom Wolforth’s prime mission was to appropriately handle the remains and make sure they could be reburied. He has been working closely with the tribe and the municipality to address their concerns. One concern, Martin said, was that these exposed remains could pose a risk of disease, especially if the dead had been buried during the time of the 1918 flu pandemic. But Wolforth assured them that if properly handled this shouldn’t be a problem.
Shaktoolik has lost its berm to the storm that’s hammered Western Alaska over the weekend, according to Mayor Lars Sookiayak. The berm was all that protected the small village from the sea. “It really saved us from the first hit that came in this morning,” one resident said.
Open water over the ocean creates conditions that lead to hoar frost and rime ice. These conditions impact travel and are expected to become more common as ice forms later in Norton Sound.
An unseasonable rain event brought high rainfall and led to high water, especially around noon on August 3rd.
"We were lucky to have the berm in place. The next day, the water levels went down and the erosion was noticeable."
White, puffy, clouds unusually close to the land.
Passenger experiences usually turbulent conditions on winter flights.
While taking photos this afternoon of the snow ice on various objects near the Native Village of Unalakleet, which was on the approximate order of 4 minutes and with very little wind (playground, grass, powerlines), my hands were cold due to the "wetness" in the air and the ambient air temperature.
Using a hand-held Garmin Montana 650t unit, I took photos of the tideline in three areas.
I documented my tracks using the Garmin unit adjusting the track setting to log about every 5 feet, which was saved as a GPS Exchange (GPX) Format. From there, I imported the information into Google Earth Desktop as a KML track.
Unusually wet winter weather activity observed. Traveling in early February (AFE) disrupted travel due to weather conditions.
Warm weather has made for unsafe traveling conditions, including a snowmachine race.
Early fall weather conditions brought on an extreme storm surge in a Norton Sound community.
Series of storms contribute to flooding, erosion, infrastructure damage.
3-5-13 Changing sea ice - Unalakleet, Alaska, USA
Lack of sea ice affects seal hunting.
Sea ice conditions making it difficult for community to harvest seasonal fish.
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