Three weeks in a row, residents of Nome and the Southern Seward Peninsula Coast received winter storm warnings from the National Weather Service. Seven out of the last eight springs have been unusually stormy. This spring alone, since March, there have been eight significant storm days.

A crab was caught on the ice just offshore in Nome. It had a small invertebrate in the gills of the crab.

A series of winter storms hit Nome with deep snow and high winds, causing school closures, flight cancellations, and significant snow removal challenges.

A storm caused shoreline erosion in Shishmaref, Alaska, but no evacuations were needed as the new seawall held and damage was minimal.

While many Bering Sea crab populations find themselves in freefall, Dungeness crab is breaking records in regions that used to hardly see them.

On Sunday, Nomeites noticed that their internet wasn’t working and that cell service was spottier than usual. Large fiberoptic line was damaged by sea ice deep underneath the moving sea ice above.

A moose that was killed in Teller last week had been infected with rabies, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game confirmed.

Health and wildlife officials confirmed a dramatic rise in rabid foxes in Nome and the region, after a winter of increased fox attacks on dogs and people. According to an ADF&G press release, of 61 foxes that were dispatched in Nome and the area, 23 percent (or 14 foxes) tested positive for rabies. Of the 11 foxes that were found dead, or were killed by dogs or people because they behaved ‘rabid’, all tested positive.

Puddles on ice, slippery sidewalks and heavy wet snow berms are remnants of a three-day weather event that pummeled Nome and the region. According to UAF Climate Specialist Rick Thoman, “that’s the highest three day total on record for Nome in March in the past 116 years.

The weekend was marked by cold sunny days and stunning aurora displays at night, but then the weather took another turn. By Tuesday morning, an east wind was howling and blowing snow sideways. The week started looking like a repeat of the last.

A Wales resident shot and killed the bear. With the loss of sea ice and the ocean staying open later in the year, polar bears have been spending more time on land, which increases the chance of human encounters.

Last week a musk ox gored a 10-year-old Malamute outside of his family’s man camp near the Old Glacier Creek Road. A visiting veterinarian cared for the injured dog commenting on more frequent conflict between musk ox and dogs and an increase in musk ox population.

Alaska State Troopers said on Tuesday that Curtis Worland, a Court Service Officer for the Nome AST post, was killed by a musk ox in the afternoon.

A week of several freeze and thaw cycles left Nome and the region with puddles on ice and scenes that look more like breakup in spring rather than the customary snowy landscape of December. The rain on ice interrupted normal life in Nome.

December should have sea ice development in Norton Sound. But no sign of ice yet this year. Several storms have moved northward across the western Bering Sea and brought strong winds and bouts of above freezing weather to the Teller area and all of the Bering Strait region.

Nome's landscape is physically altered, with raw material scattered wildly, the coastline reconfigured, and camps that anchored generations of subsistence either flattened or gone.

A historically powerful storm slammed into Western Alaska Friday night and into Saturday, bringing major flooding and high winds to a huge swath of coastal communities. By Saturday evening, the state said it had received no reports of injuries or deaths related to the storm. But damage had torn across hundreds of miles of Alaska’s coastline impacting communities all along the way. Alaskans described water flooding homes and roads. Wind tore off roofs. Houses floated off their foundations. Boats sank.

After alerting the region to very high levels of harmful algal blooms west of Kotzebue and Gambell two weeks ago, scientist onboard the research vessel Norseman II have found even higher numbers of Alexandrium catenella algae cells near Wales, Diomede and Shishmaref.

Researchers stepping off the research vessel Norseman II in Nome last weekend, brought significant news of having found very high concentrations of a phytoplankton called Alexandrium catenella in regional waters. Alexandrium is an algae that can produce saxitoxins, which can cause dangerous paralytic shellfish poisoning in people. The scientists issued an advisory, notifying Norton Sound Health Corporation, UAF Sea Grant and the Alaska Division of Public Health.

After no commercial crabbing since 2019, this summer’s Norton Sound Red King Crab fishery had a record year of $3.7 million dollars in ex-vessel value.