Absolutely, use what works. At the time I came from a non-coding background. Tons of serious professionals moved from rolling their own to GM because reinventing the wheel on a lot of essentials isn't cost effective and can be mildly insanity inducing.
Biomes are an excellent idea if only for variety. I'd think, if you were going to explore the great salt basin for example, it might warn you before entering one of the tiles "you are entering the great salt basin. This area is particularly arid so you will end up using more water. Cacti are also rarer. Come prepared."
Alaska is cold, and unless the earths axis tilted after impact it can still be expected to have a cold climate, at least after dark. And deserts can get pretty cold at night to say the least. It wouldn't be unexpected to have some sort of penalty if the player travels at night, or a warning at sunset. Maybe make torches a requirement for further north, or for mountain regions.
The amount of dust after an apocalypse might create regions completely shaded in night. And lets not forget that alaska is known as 'the land of the midnight sun.'
Besides bandits coming at night, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say 'monsters come at night, put up lights!' just like wildlife in the old west, attacking ranches (but what do I know, I'm not a rancher!)
This is far and away from the original purpose of the thread but I have to ask, when did the apocalypse happen? Because by the time it did, alaska could have been developed as any other coastal state (maybe with a very rural, traditional interior. It's a big state after all).
If it happened in the future, theres no reason alaska couldn't have developed say, metros or rails between now and the time that the world went to pieces.