© Alaska Department of Transportation and Public FacilitiesSnow filled roads Wednesday in Valdez, Alaska.
Imagine going into a movie theater to check out the latest science fiction flick and there is not a single flake of snow on the ground. A couple hours later, as the credits start to roll, you mosey outside and are stunned to find your car buried in more than a foot of snow.
Perhaps you'd wonder if you were still watching a movie.
Well that's kind of what happened Wednesday at Alaska's Thompson Pass, just outside of the town of Valdez
, when an incredible 10 inches of snow piled up in one hour — around 1.7 inches every 10 minutes. This is an absolutely incredible snowfall rate.The furious storm dropped another 5 inches in 30 minutes, for a remarkable 15 inches in a brief hour and a half period.
In the end, 40 inches of heavy wet snow accumulated in 12 hours.The Thompson Pass storm ranks among the most intense snowfalls that we know of, according to a quick analysis by Weather Underground's weather historian, Christopher Burt.
Comment: See also: Alaska records one of the most extreme snowfall rates on record, 10 inches per hour; highway near Valdez under 20 foot of snow