Wet, windy warm front sweeps Southeast Alaska

It’s not often that the warmest time of the day is early in the morning, but that was the surprising fact at many locations in Alaska’s panhandle today. A small but potent low with a defined push of warm air on its eastern flank (the warm front) moved north last night and during the early […]

Winter Weather Wonderings: What’s in store for SE AK?

After a couple very mild winters this one is feeling different. Northern southeast Alaska has been cold and windy virtually all November while farther south things have been close to normal or a little below. The wind graph for November in Skagway shown below is very telling of the strong outflow winds that have brought […]

Skagway, AK meteogram

Sea breezes: an Alaskan spring-summer staple

You’ve heard it said…Alaska has sooo much coastline… We do, about 34,000 miles (54,700 km) worth, and we have the perfect weather phenomenon to go with it: the sea breeze. The sea breeze is a local wind blowing from water to land arising from the relative warmth of the land vs. the water. Warmer land […]

Alaska weather on a roller coaster

Back into the freezer The strong “January thaw” that pushed well into the interior and tied the all time January record for Alaska is being pushed toward the back of our memories by seasonal and colder weather. Boy, it feels colder after a long warm spell! Wind chills here in northern Southeast Alaska are bouncing […]

Flying through the JAWS of Southeast Alaska Weather

While waiting to board my Alaska Airlines flight from Juneau to Seattle April 9, the all-to-common announcement came over the PA about a likely weather delay. As I happened to have my laptop handy with Internet access available, I quickly checked the Juneau airport weather observations. I did not see any weather issue that would […]

Two kinds of cold in Alaska

Dry cold, wet cold?   no. Winter cold and summer cold?  no. Bitterly cold vs extremely cold?  no. Calm vs windy cold? close. All these would make good blog subjects, but what I’m thinking about today is domestic cold vs imported cold. Seriously. I have a good recent example.

The highly channeled winds of coastal Alaska

Alaska is a big place, and the weather system affecting our state right now is even bigger, but I’m going to show you that is it the small scale that counts when it comes to winds of the south and southeast coasts. As I write this, virtually the whole state is under the influence of […]