Morning View

Daybreak is coming earlier now. It is light outside by eight in the morning and by nine the sun is casting long shadows across February's snow.

Yet despite the lenghtening hours of daylight, time seems suspended. Subarctic February stretches like a featureless desert across both the landscape and the calendar.

A procession of powerful Pacific storms continue to batter western Alaska but we here on the Kenai Peninsula have seen little effect save for warmer than normal temperatures. Usually a stretch of clear weather would send the mercury down to zero or lower but the thermometer has been making daily excursions above freezing, even under the icy blue skies.

February has traditionally been a "big snow" month. So far, that hasn't materialized.