An unusually strong storm for this time of year was bringing rain and heavy winds to parts of Southcentral Alaska on Sunday.
The first half of June was Anchorage’s windiest in more than 50 years, the result of an unusually stormy spring in Alaska.
The storm brought winds up to 40 mph to communities from Wainwright to Kaktovik, weather officials said. High waves damaged a road in Utqiagvik, affecting around five houses, residents reported.
A storm bringing strong wind, rain and snow to Southcentral Alaska on Tuesday caused power outages from Anchorage to Whittier and damaged some homes on the Anchorage Hillside. The weather service reported a peak gust of 133 mph on Sunburst mountain on the western Kenai Peninsula.
Nearly 12 inches of rain fell on the town of Pelican in 48 hours, and all-time records were set in Juneau, Skagway, Haines, Petersburg and Ketchikan. The City of Haines is sending alerts about the immediate danger of landslides.
While Anchorage was getting hammered by wind, snow was piling up in the Susitna Valley — with a whopping 4 feet of snow at Hatcher Pass, according to a rough estimate.
One reading on the Hillside clocked winds reaching 91 miles per hour. The day saw reports of property damage, road closures and downed power lines.LEO Note: According to Rick Thoman of NWS, these are unusually high winds for April.
Snow may have fallen at the lowest elevation ever observed in the state.
After he lost the trail, Jeff King stopped his dog team and draped his sleeping bag over his head to block the battering wind and blowing snow. He was somewhere between the villages of Ambler and Shungnak in the Kobuk 440 Sled Dog Race. Conditions ranged from howling to furious. King lay down with his team. He cuddled a dog named Twister and tried to sleep. That’s when a flaw in the plan rattled his bones. The work of getting there had caused him to sweat, dampness worsened by blowing snow that found its way inside his clothing.
After being buried, the trapped hiker was able to kick his legs free. A hiker passing by spotted his feet sticking out of the snow.
A wind gust of 113 mph was recorded Monday morning along the Seward Highway near Potter Marsh. Above-freezing temperatures are making side streets icy.
Jeffrey Cheng, 33, died in the slide. One of his friends managed to hold on to a tree as waves of avalanche debris washed over his head. The third member of their group wasn’t caught.
Winds of up to 85 mph ripped up the Southwest Alaska coast on Friday, upending smokehouses, tearing electric lines and flinging a house across the road.
Anchorage sidewalks were slick with ice and the roads were full of puddles because of unseasonably high temperatures.By mid morning the temperature had reached 46 degrees.
A 100-foot vessel, the Polar Bear, ended up aground on an island across a channel from the town.
An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Air Station Kodiak flew over the area of an oil spill in Shuyak Strait on Wednesday afternoon, but weather continued to hamper response efforts, the Coast Guard said.
Hundreds of Chugach Electric customers in Anchorage and Girdwood remained without power Wednesday morning amid outages from Fairbanks to Nikiski.
A windstorm pounded parts of Southcentral Alaska early Monday, knocking down trees and cutting off power for thousands of people from the Matanuska Valley to the Kenai Peninsula.
A band of wet, warm weather barreled into Southcentral Alaska on Friday and stirred up an odd blend of high winds, slushy roads and even rainbow sightings.
Increasing winds may drive the air quality to become "unhealthy to hazardous," said a statement from Eileen Probasco, planning director with the Matanuska-Sustina Borough.
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