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The beginning of the end of the year 2019 – the warmest in Alaska history – drew to an end in the state’s largest city in the style of the new-normal weather to which many in state’s urban core have grown accustomed.
From the top of the Hotel Captain Cook, the view of rain splattering down on snow-free, 45-degree downtown streets looked more like what one would expect to see in a Seattle suburb than Alaska on New Year’s Eve.
Within hours, however, that was history, and the old normal was on its way back. The temperature by midnight had dropped to 25 degrees and snow was falling heavily.By noon on New Year’s day, the National Weather Service reported snow depths of 7 inches to almost 22 inches spread across the Municipality of Anchorage.