Helicopters will service the Seward Peninsula's snow stations as the first snow arrives

The Interior Department on Oct. 14 hired Bering Air of Nome for on-call helicopter support to the automated snow stations the federal government runs on the Seward Peninsula, as the first snow of the season begins to show up on their sensors.

The order runs through Nov. 30, with $4,650 committed so far, according to federal award records. The flights support the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agency that runs a network of remote snow stations known as SNOTEL, short for snow telemetry.

Each station sits in a remote spot and works on its own. A "snow pillow" on the ground weighs the snow piled on top of it, and the station converts that weight into snow water equivalent, the amount of liquid water the snowpack holds. Stations also measure snow depth, precipitation and air temperature, and send readings several times a day by radio or satellite, according to the conservation service. The data are public and used to forecast water supplies.

Alaska has 90 automated stations after the agency added seven in fiscal 2024, according to its annual report. One of them is at Pilgrim Hot Springs on the Seward Peninsula. The others went in near Yukon Crossing, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, on the Kenai Peninsula and in the Talkeetna Mountains. Surveyors also took 581 readings by hand and from aircraft at snow courses and aerial markers that year.

Four of the stations are on or near the Seward Peninsula. Rocky Point and Pargon Creek have reported since 1999 and Johnsons Camp since 2000, and Pilgrim Hot Springs came online in July 2024, according to the agency's station records.

Winter is just starting to register. Rocky Point showed no snow early in the week and 9 inches by Saturday, and Pilgrim Hot Springs still showed bare ground, according to provisional station data.

The conservation service lists the National Weather Service's Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center among its snow survey partners. Its monthly snow reports track whether each region's snowpack is running above or below normal. In February 2020, for example, it reported Seward Peninsula snowpack lower than in four or five years, even with normal to above-normal precipitation.

Bering Air holds an earlier order for the same Seward Peninsula station work, now at $6,750.