Residents can look back on December and brag about shoveling, sliding and struggling through what might have been a record snowfall — or at least close.

It was deep enough and steady enough the past week to mess up travel plans, close school on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 15-16, and send people to shovel their roofs and boats — and dig out their cars multiple times.

It also created the first opportunity for Jennifer Davies’ third-grade class to buckle into their new cross-country skis and swoosh around behind the elementary school.

And as if a couple of feet weren’t enough, the National Weather Service on Tuesday morning forecast a couple more inches for Tuesday and Wednesday -- maybe mixed with cold rain -- before the skies clear with single-digit nighttime lows for the weekend.

The snow is forecast to return for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Between Monday, Dec. 8, and Monday, Dec. 15, the town was covered — enjoyed or suffered, depending on your perspective — by more than two feet of snow.

There hasn’t been a staffed National Weather Service reporting station in Wrangell in years. Instead, the agency has equipment at the airport that collects the snow, melts it in a heated bucket, measures the water and calculates (based on temperature and other factors) how much snow has fallen.

The heaviest snowfall days in the weeklong stretch were Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 8-9, when up to 9 inches fell on each day, Nick Morgan, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Juneau, said.

That was followed by maybe a couple more inches on Wednesday, Dec. 10, he said in an interview on Dec. 11.

The weather station at the airport transmits data every five minutes, Morgan said. Weather data and measurements are available at weather.gov.

A dry spell of cold weather in the teens followed for a few days before several more inches of snow fell on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 13-14, mixing with freezing, icy rain on Sunday.

The snow has been relentless, as has the road clearing work. Crews were out again at 5:30 a.m. Sunday morning, making multiple passes on Church Street and several other Wrangell streets. They were back early Monday morning.

Juneau-based National Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Garmon told KSTK radio last week that he estimates Wrangell broke a record.

“We did break some daily records at Juneau and at Petersburg when the Arctic front came through those locations,” he said. “I suspect, based on the fact that we had fair amount of snow reported around Wrangell, that historically, if we’d had records at Wrangell, we probably would have broken them.”

Though Wrangell is known more for its rain than its snow, the community has been buried by memorable snowfalls in the past. On Dec. 11, 1980, the community was covered by 26 inches of snow on the ground after a six-day storm that blocked any flights from coming to town.

“During the snowstorm, more than 6,000 pounds of air freight and mail for Wrangell stacked up in Seattle, Ketchikan and Juneau — two pounds for every man, woman and child in town,” the Sentinel reported the week after the storm lifted and air service resumed.

The Sentinel reported the 1980 storm eclipsed the old record for snow on the ground of 20 inches, set in 1957.

With advanced avionics and GPS navigation, Alaska Airlines was able to get in and out of Wrangell last week close to schedule, with only one flight diverted due to snow and low visibility. But then the southbound jet on Monday, Dec. 15, was unable to land.

The same heavy snow that socked Wrangell early last week also hit Petersburg, dumping about 15 inches on Dec. 8 and 9, the Petersburg Pilot reported.

Juneau, too, was hit, with a record 9.6 inches on Saturday, Dec. 6, and almost 14 inches Dec. 6-7, according to the National Weather Service. The storm resulted in multiple power outages to areas mostly out the road, including some caused by fallen trees.

After the snow stopped last week, extreme cold moved in, dropping Juneau nighttime temperatures below zero before warming up and bringing — yes — more snow, more than a foot Saturday through Monday, Dec. 13-15.

Juneau schools were closed Monday, Dec. 15.

With all of the snow in Wrangell, the fire department asked residents: “If there’s a fire hydrant in your neighborhood, please take a few minutes to clear the snow from around it to make it visible to our responders! … A visible, accessible hydrant can make all the difference when seconds matter.”

With so much snow on the ground and more on its way, City Hall advised residents to park their vehicles off the roads and out of the way so that plow crews can clear the streets.

Schools closed in Wrangell on Monday, as did the community center, swimming pool and Nolan Center.

The borough asked residents not to stack snow in the roadways, where it could present a hazard to traffic, and reminded property owners that they are responsible for clearing sidewalks in front of their home or business.

Wrangell’s third-grade students didn’t need to worry about sidewalks or snow-covered streets when they put on their new skis and enjoyed the fresh snow.

Their teacher, Jennifer Davies, wrote a successful grant application last year for $2,500 from the Alaska Ski Educational Foundation — matched by $2,500 in local fundraising — and purchased 25 sets of skis, poles and boots to fit the young students.

Davies taught in the Northwest Arctic Borough School District communities of Kotzebue and Selawik before coming home to Wrangell to teach in 2010. Her Arctic life with cross-country skiing convinced her to bring it to Wrangell students. “I always said I would do that here.”

The weather did not cooperate. “We had no snow last year,” keeping the skis and poles in storage until last week.

About 16 kids skied on Tuesday, Dec. 9, and again two days later. “They loved it,” Davies said. “It’s a dream come true,” adding, “we’ll go out as much as we can.”

She doesn’t think any of the kids had ever been skiing.

“It’s skiing, it’s hard work,” she said, wondering if some of her students might decide it was too much work. “Not one of them said that.”

Some fell down as they learned how to manage on skis, but that was OK. “They fall, they’re 8 and 9 years old, they’re so resilient,” Davies said. Part of the lesson is “picking them up and teaching them how to fall.”

She explained, “My goal is to introduce the kids to something they’ve never experienced before.”