Anchorage is cool and wet this summer as the rest of the world bakes in the sun and heat.

Alaska is one of the only places in the world where peony flowers grow in the summer months. But the unusually cold, wet weather this year is delaying the blooms by weeks.

The first half of June was Anchorage’s windiest in more than 50 years, the result of an unusually stormy spring in Alaska.

Over the last several weeks the algae bloom has ranged from significant covering the surface of the lake in many places to today seeing patches of the bloom here and there on the surface. It can also be observed below the surface near the shoreline.