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Photo by Johnny Wagner

It’s not every day that children get to build snowmen in Fairbanks.

That was the case on Monday, as a late spring storm dumped about 6 inches of heavy, wet snow on the Tanana Valley, leaving many frustrated Fairbanksans wondering when spring will finally arrive while schoolchildren took advantage of the sticky snow by constructing snowmen and snow forts on playgrounds and yards across the city.

“This is pretty dense, heavy stuff,” meteorologist Ted Fathauer at the National Weather Service in Fairbanks said. “This is not powder.”

Indeed, Monday’s snowfall was not the dry, powdery snow that typically falls in Fairbanks.

Of course, Fairbanks doesn’t typically get 6 inches of snow on April 14. Monday’s dump was the third-highest 24-hour snowfall for the month of April in Fairbanks. Accumulations of 4 to 8 inches were reported around the Tanana Valley

“This is the biggest storm of the season so far,” Fathauer said, adding that more snow was expected Monday night and today.

The snow was the result of warm, moist air blowing in from the Bering Sea and mixing with cooler air in the Interior, he said.

The snow will likely stick around for at least a few days with the cooler temperatures expected this week, Fathauer said. High temperatures are expected to be a few degrees below freezing, while lows will be in the low teens through most of the week. Temperatures will begin warming up Friday, he said.

“We’re not into breakup yet,” Fathauer said.

Fairbanks drivers got a taste of something they don’t see much of, either, on Monday — slush.

The Department of Transportation in Fairbanks issued a travel advisory early Monday and crews were doing their best to clear the roads, DOT information officer Jaime Schwartzwald said. Crews were called out at 2:30 a.m. Monday to begin clearing heavily traveled roads.

“We’re just trying to keep up with it,” he said.

Except for messy driving conditions and lots of puddles around town in the next few days, city public works director Mike Schmetzer said the late snowfall likely won’t cause too many headaches.

City crews pretty much had the streets cleared of snow and most of the drain pipes were thawed two weeks ago, allowing workers to focus on other projects instead of snow removal.

On Monday, they were back to clearing snow, and there’s a good chance the pipes that were thawed have frozen up again and will need to be re-thawed, he said.

“At this time of year you get this trickle flow and then it gets cold and all those rivulets freeze up again,” he said.

Despite the heavy, wet snow, Golden Valley Electrical Association reported no power problems as a result of snow building up on trees and power lines.

“It’s not sticking to the lines or the trees,” GVEA spokeswoman Corrine Bradish said. “It’s just falling off.”

The late snow also means an extended season for cross-country and downhill skiers.

Mount Aurora Skiland, on top of Cleary Summit, got 6 to 8 inches of snow on Monday, and it wasn’t the wet, heavy snow that fell in town.

“It’s powder up here,” Brenda Birdsall said by phone.

That should make for great spring skiing conditions for at least one, if not two, more weekends, she said.

“It’s the best skiing of the year, that’s what everybody is saying,” Birdsall said.

There’s even a chance for some May skiing if it stays cool enough, Birdsall said, adding that Skiland is offering a late-season discount.

“We’ll see what happens with this crazy weather,” she said.

The total snowfall for the month of April is now at about 8 inches, making it the third-snowiest month of the winter, behind January (14.4 inches) and October (9.5). More snow has fallen this month than in March (1.4 inches) and February (5.4) combined.

The average snowfall for April is 3.8 inches. The record snowfall total for the month is 25.1 inches in 1948.