It’s the latest example of why daily life in Alaska is predictably unpredictable: earlier this summer, the region KNOM serves was the host for a series of strange (but, thankfully, mostly benign) weather events.
Aside from a few evenings of thunder and lightning, which are very rare for us, perhaps the most noticeable was a several-days long period of smoke in the sky, caused by severe wildfires burning in interior Alaska hundreds of miles away.
This summer, as always, KNOM weather reports informed our region when “smoke,” not “clouds” or “rain,” would be the weather forecast — and our daily news broadcasts explained the reason why.