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Too much, too little High snowfall in one area, low in another delays foothills opening Alan Bailey Petroleum News
With Anadarko taking a breather from its drilling program in the Gubik area, no one is on the ground exploring for oil or gas in Alaska’s Brooks Range foothills this winter. But that may be just as well, given this year’s late opening of tundra travel on state lands in the region.
On March 12 the Alaska Department of Natural Resources announced that the upper foothills area is finally open for off-road travel, with an estimated opening date of Feb. 26. But DNR said that the lower foothills area remains closed. With a general lack of off-road projects planned for the foothills, the department has not been monitoring conditions in foothills as frequently as normal — hence the estimated date for the upper foothills opening.
“It is hard to say how the Feb. 26 opening for the upper foothills fits in an historical perspective,” Gary Schultz of Alaska’s Division of Mining, Land and Water told Petroleum News March 12. “It is certainly very late and most probably a record.”
However, Schultz pointed out that DNR has only been monitoring and separately distinguishing the foothills areas since 2002. And, in fact, there was no general tundra opening on state lands in northern Alaska in the winters of 1976-77 or 1979-80 because of a lack of snow.
This winter’s opening dates of Dec. 17 and Dec. 22 for the state’s western and eastern coastal areas were a little later than normal, but not exceptionally so, Schultz said.
Strange winter In what Schultz characterized as a “strange winter,” the coastal areas and lower foothills saw very little snow as the winter closed in, with the lack of snow cover enabling the ground to rapidly freeze to the temperature threshold of minus 5 degrees Celsius at a depth of one foot required for general tundra travel. But then DNR had to wait some time for adequate snowfall, to meet the snow-depth criteria for the tundra travel opening in the coastal areas. On the other hand, there is still insufficient snow in the lower foothills to meet the opening criteria.
In contrast, the upper foothills and the southwest lower foothills received a huge amount of snow, with the deep snow cover insulating the ground and delaying the cooling of the tundra to that minus 5 C threshold until late February.
The winter of 2008-09 also saw an especially large amount of snow in the upper foothills, but in that winter tundra travel opened on Feb. 2, Schultz said.
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