Is it always snowing?

No. In Anchorage, it usually snows for the first time in October. Before then, you can see snow on the tops of the mountains. Some people call it "termination dust" because it means summer is almost over. We usually have some big snow storms (two or three feet of snow at once) and a lot of little storms (just a skiff or a couple of inches). Big graders plow the roads until there is a lot of snow piled up. Then front-end loaders put the snow into dump trucks and haul it to snow dumps, which can get a hundred feet high. One year, a snow dump didn't melt until August. Someone put a sign on it that said "O'Malley Glacier" (it was next to O'Malley Road). In towns near the ocean, like Valdez, they dump snow in the ocean instead of piling it up. By the first of May, most of the snow in Anchorage has usually melted and the days are very long and sunny.