A Winter Weather Advisory is issued for northern Lynn Canal

A Winter Weather Advisory has been issued for much of Southeast Alaska that calls for 4” to 8” of fresh snow in the northern panhandle on Wednesday followed by a warmup and heavy rains through the weekend. KHNS’ Mike Swasey talked with meteorologist Cody Moore from the National Weather Service in Juneau for the complete forecast.

Swasey – Cody, what’s happening with the weather this week? It looks kind of ominous in the forecast.

Moore – Yeah, it does. active weather begins again. Snow’s coming in for Wednesday where we have a winter storm watch out for all of upper Lynn Canal. Everything changes to rain, looks like Wednesday night into Thursday, and then heavy rain moves in for the weekend.

Swasey – Okay, so how much snow are we talking about on Wednesday?

Moore – So right now it’s looking like four to eight inches of snow is in the forecast. Looks like Haines could get a little bit more than Skagway, so they might see some of the higher-end totals there. And then that’s for Wednesday into Wednesday night. And then much heavier rain comes in Friday through the rest of the weekend where at least in our forecast right now it’s showing two to up to four inches of rain could fall.

Swasey – Is this an atmospheric river event like we had last December?

Moore – I’m not going to compare it to that event. But yes, this is an atmospheric river type of event for this weekend. But I don’t want to compare it to that event and then scare people. 

Swasey – What’s the temperature going to be like? Tuesday was a little cooler than you know the last few days in and around upper Lynn Canal, so are temperatures going to stay below freezing now through Wednesday and then start to rise again on Thursday? 

Moore – Yes, temperatures are expected to remain below freezing through Wednesday, Wednesday night. Temperatures will rise above freezing sometime late Wednesday night, early Thursday. And then they should remain above freezing through the weekend.

Swasey – Like how warm are we talking about 45 – 50 degrees? 

Moore – Well, currently for Saturday, we have a high of 42 for Haines so it could get quite warm compared to where we’ve been.

Swasey – As you travel out the road from Haines up into Klukwan do snow totals get much deeper out there?

Moore – Yeah, typically, once you go from Klukwan and westward, we typically get much higher snow totals out there just because you know, the colder air stays in the valley. And you know, you’re closer to Canada where all that cold air is coming from and you have less influence from the warmer air from Lynn Canal. 

Swasey – Is there a chance that they’ll see snow this weekend instead of rain? 

Moore – With how warm the system is, it’s likely that most places will change over to rain. Currently, in our forecast, we have much of the Haines highway changing over to rain, you know, with the exception of maybe like right at the border.

Swasey – And how about the Klondike highway on the way up to Whitehorse?

Moore – Klondike Highway looks like it’ll change to rain. We have snow levels rising to around 2400 feet this weekend. So once you reach White Pass, it’ll probably be snow. But for much of your way up there from Skagway, it could be wet and icy.

Swasey – How about winds? What are winds going to be looking like throughout this week?

Moore – Winds will remain out of the north through Wednesday, up to 20 knots flipping out of the south by Thursday. So south 15 Thursday into Friday, and then south 20 a s you head into the weekend as the atmospheric river comes in. So big changes coming to upper Lynn Canal.

Swasey – So breezy, but not exceptionally windy, the real problem is going to be that rain. What do we need to prepare for with all that rain?

Moore – Rain on top of snow is going to make the snowpack very heavy and dense. All this rain is going to do is just really compact your snowpack. So expect hazardous travel conditions, whether you’re getting rain or snow, it’s going to be very icy out there. All the rain on top of snow could cause, additional issues. You know, storm drains could be clogged, could be frozen, so flooding is a concern. 

Swasey – And then what about next week? Are we going to plummet in temperature again and then is everything going to solidify? Or are we going to have a break after this rain where it’s still kind of warm but not raining?

Moore – So the long-term pattern looks pretty active with many storm systems coming out of the south. So right now I’m not really seeing a big cool off and everything’s gonna freeze. What looks likely to happen is we’ll continue to get storms out of the south and we remain on the warm side and continue to get more rain.

Swasey – Well it is Juneuary after all.

Moore – Exactly, exactly, that January thaw.

Swasey – Thank you Cody so much for taking us through the weather outlook for the rest of the week and into the weekend, I appreciate it.

Moore – Thank you so much.

For more information on the Winter Storm Watch for upper Lynn Canal visit weather.gov.