Another winter storm looks to roll through the upper Lynn Canal later this week. KHNS’ Mike Swasey talked with meteorologist Cody Moore from the National Weather Service in Juneau for a look at the latest storm expected to impact the region on Thursday night.

Swasey – Cody there’s a big storm rolling through the upper Lynn Canal later this week, what are the details? 

Moore – Yeah, it looks like more snow is expected for upper Lynn Canal. Currently, a winter storm watch is out for the area from late Thursday evening through Friday. Around sea level, it looks like five to nine inches of snow is possible.

Swasey – Are you expecting much more snow in Haines than in Skagway?

Moore – There’s a little bit of uncertainty regarding the exact snowfall totals between Haines and Skagway. If we get a southerly push through the channels then that can change some snow over to rain early Friday morning. And if that happens, that’ll really lower some snow totals. Typically when that happens Skagway is the first one to get that warm push. So typically, Haines does get more snow than Skagway. And that’s going to be the thinking with this as well, where Haines could stay a little bit colder.

Swasey – What are the temps looking like for Thursday and Friday?

Moore – So temperature-wise, we’re going to start out in the 20s and then slowly warm up into the 30s coming towards Friday morning. So you’re not going to have your typical, you know, temperatures falling at night. So temperatures should rise Thursday evening through Friday morning to around the freezing mark, you know by sunrise on Friday. 

Now that’s the time period as well, where we’re thinking we could switch over to a period of rain before we switch back over to snow showers Friday afternoon and evening. So the duration of the period that could be rain is pretty short. So the heaviest snowfall amounts will fall late Thursday evening through early Friday morning.

Swasey – So what are we looking at totals for the week, then, in the Haines area?

Moore – They could be a pretty significant Wednesday, we’re gonna get one to four inches of snow and then an additional five to nine, you know, well over a foot for much of the Haines area.

Swasey – Sounds like good skiing.

Moore – Yeah, great skiing weather. 

Swasey – Now speaking of skiing, how vicious is the wind going to be? Because in Skagway, you get out on those skis and it’s crisp going into the wind.

Moore – So we know winds could gust upwards of 40 miles per hour toward Skagway and then Mud Bay and near Lynn canal Thursday night into Friday.

Swasey – And then how does the weekend look as we approach Saturday and Sunday?

Moore – So we do see a slight drying trend through the weekend. Temperatures are going to be much colder though. We’re expecting highs only in the 20s for much of the area this weekend and lows getting much colder looks like right now we have lows already getting down to the single digits by Sunday morning.

Swasey – So I think we have a pretty good idea. Pretty good snow amounts on Wednesday through just the early afternoon and then on Thursday into Friday, upwards of you know somewhere between five and 10 inches are possible and then we’re going to get cold and that snows gonna hang around all weekend long.

Moore – Yeah, and the chance for precipitation diminishes. So, you know, we might even see some peeks of sun come late in the weekend.

Swasey – Cody, thanks so much for the time I really appreciate the report.

Moore – Thank you so much, have a good one.