Our spring has been absolutely beautiful. In the 39 years that I have lived in Alaska, I cannot remember as early and warm a spring as this! The birch trees went through budburst on 23 May and the willows, aspen and cottonwood trees were not far behind. Green up is continuing as the tiny leaves lengthen. We have been enjoying songs from the returning migrant birds for more than 2 weeks (I heard the first American Robin on 20 May). And of course, the snow has melted except for the berms that were piled up by the snowplows. The increased day length has also been uplifting.
My only concern about the warm weather is how dry it is. There are many warnings out about preventing wildfires. I hope we get some rain soon!
The sun rose today at 5:10 am and will set at 10:28 pm for a total day length of 17 hours 18 minutes. That is an increase of almost 3.5 hours of daylight since last month. The temperature when I took these photos was 13°C. We have had no precipitation for several weeks.
