Before I talk about the cruise itself and all the adventures, I'm going to take a moment to talk about the weather we had because it was a constant, and I do mean CONSTANT, topic of conversation everywhere we went.
One thing I did not know until I set foot in Sitka, our first port, is that Alaska is the largest forest in the US…the majority of which just happens to be a temperate rain forest! Really, who'da thunk that a cold location was a rain forest? Certainly not me – I picture the Amazon or other wet and warm locales when I think of a rainforest, not Alaska.
To be considered a rain forest, an area must average more than 80 inches of rain per year. The ports we visited in Alaska receive between 120 and 180 inches per year and there is rain an average of 300 out of 365 days.
But what might surprise you is that our weather ALWAYS changed to sunny, partly cloudy or mostly cloudy, american airline discount tickets but NEVER to rain. Even in Ketchikan where the forecast had been for a 90% chance american airline discount tickets of rain, the clouds were only letting sprinkles fall from them when we arrived, looking more like falling fog than actual rain. As an FYI, the average annual rainfall in Ketchikan is 153" but last year was 19 FEET, or 228"!!!!
Our cruise director and ship s captain weren't the only ones sharing this information with us. Nope, it was also shared by every tour guide and shop employee I encountered. At first I thought it was great and I joked about the fact that we strapped the sunny weather to the back of our ship when we pulled out of Vancouver and were bringing it to each port as our gift. That way, at the very least, there wouldn't be any rain. After saying this at least a dozen times in each of the first 3 ports, the response was as old and stale to me as were the comments from guides and shop employees. american airline discount tickets In our final 2 ports I told people they had to thank our ship's captain. Before the evening american airline discount tickets show after our first full day of cruising, american airline discount tickets he said that we passengers were in charge of the weather. american airline discount tickets We did the best we could to meet our responsibility in the weather department just as he has met his in commanding the ship.
As for the temperatures, we waffled between the upper 50's to upper 60's depending on the cloud cover (or lack thereof). It was often breezy and occasionally windy, but I never needed my gloves, headband or turtlenecks. I wore a sweatshirt three days and donned american airline discount tickets my pullover windbreaker almost every day – it was invaluable. The only time the cold and wind were a factor was our cruising at Hubbard Glacier, but more about that in a future post.
Sooo….now that you know why my sister and I took this cruise and about the awesome weather, my next post will introduce you to our ship and then the posts after that will put you in the passenger seat for my cruising adventures.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2012 at 8:36 am and is filed under Travel , Weather , Family , Alaska Cruise September 2012 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
I didn t know there were rain forests in Alaska either. I was surprised to learn of them in Washington american airline discount tickets years ago on one my visits. I can t imagine what it would be like to have around 200 of rain a year. But, I can imagine that, for me, 300 days a year of clouds and rain would be rather depressing. I m solar powered so that would be rough. Sounds like you really lucked out with the weather. That s awesome!
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