Coordinates: 56°23′30″N 134°39′23″W / 56.39167°N 134.65639°W / 56.39167; -134.65639 Port Walter is located on the southeastern side of Baranof Island in Sitka City and Borough, Alaska. It is made up of two parts: Little Port Walter and Big Port Walter.
Little Port Walter was the home of a herring saltery during the turn on the century and the ruins can still be seen. Little Port Walter had a small community at one time but has been replaced by a research station that studies the life cycles of several species of Salmon. There is a staff of 3–15 state and federal employees running the research station year-round. There is a dock, and the harbor itself is a safe anchorage.
Little Port Walter receives an average annual precipitation of over 225 inches (5.7 m) and as such is the wettest permanent settlement in the United States and among the wettest in the world with lengthy climate records. As many as seventy-eight days per year see over 1 inch (25 mm) of rain and/or snowfall per year, whilst in October 1974 69.23 inches (1.76 m) of rain fell and in January 1985 61.67 inches (1.57 m). The record daily rainfall was 14.84 inches (376.9 mm) on 6 December 1964. The driest month was February 1989 with 0.63 inches (16.00 mm), whilst the hottest day on record was 12 August 1990 with 88 °F (31 °C) and the coldest 19 January 1981 with 0 °F (−18 °C) overnight. The heaviest snowfall in a month was 94.2 inches (2.4 m) in December 2001.
| Climate data for Little Port Walter, Alaska | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °F (°C) | 54 (12) |
58 (14) |
57 (14) |
67 (19) |
72 (22) |
80 (27) |
79 (26) |
88 (31) |
73 (23) |
61 (16) |
57 (14) |
54 (12) |
88 (31) |
| Average high °F (°C) | 36.4 (2.4) |
38.9 (3.8) |
41.3 (5.2) |
46.6 (8.1) |
52.7 (11.5) |
58.2 (14.6) |
61.6 (16.4) |
61.6 (16.4) |
56.4 (13.6) |
49.2 (9.6) |
42.2 (5.7) |
38.6 (3.7) |
48.6 (9.2) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 28.1 (−2.2) |
29.9 (−1.2) |
31.0 (−0.6) |
34.1 (1.2) |
39.0 (3.9) |
44.5 (6.9) |
48.7 (9.3) |
49.0 (9.4) |
45.4 (7.4) |
39.7 (4.3) |
33.9 (1.1) |
30.5 (−0.8) |
37.8 (3.2) |
| Record low °F (°C) | 0 (−18) |
3 (−16) |
5 (−15) |
18 (−8) |
24 (−4) |
32 (0) |
37 (3) |
39 (4) |
31 (−1) |
23 (−5) |
4 (−16) |
4 (−16) |
0 (−18) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 21.88 (555.8) |
19.21 (487.9) |
17.10 (434.3) |
14.54 (369.3) |
12.16 (308.9) |
8.25 (209.6) |
8.01 (203.5) |
14.08 (357.6) |
23.52 (597.4) |
33.34 (846.8) |
27.79 (705.9) |
26.57 (674.9) |
226.45 (5,751.9) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 32.0 (81.3) |
25.5 (64.8) |
17.1 (43.4) |
3.7 (9.4) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.4 (1) |
9.8 (24.9) |
24.2 (61.5) |
112.7 (286.3) |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.01 inch) | 21 | 19 | 21 | 17 | 17 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 20 | 25 | 24 | 24 | 232 |
| Source: | |||||||||||||
Famous quotes containing the words port and/or walter:
“The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Of course I’m a black writer.... I’m not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren’t marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call “literature” is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hassidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)