Northern Lynn Canal welcomes spring weather this week

Winter weather has begun to subside in the upper Lynn Canal leading to daytime temperatures above freezing this week with light winds and rain in the lower elevations. KHNS’ Mike Swasey talked with the National Weather Service’s Kimberly Vaughan in Juneau for the complete forecast.

Swasey – Kimberly what’s happening in weather in the upper Lynn Canal this week?

Vaughan – Well the northern Lynn Canal, as far as if you’re gonna go out on the water, Tuesday night north winds about 15 knots. And for the rest of the week looking really nice with a southeasterly wind about 15 knots and seas three feet. So not a lot of strong systems moving in for the next week, which is nice, kind of a nice change.

Swasey – What about temperatures, you know, the temperatures look like they might dip down a little bit midweek?

Vaughan – Yeah, the coldest days with these clearing nights that we have are definitely seeing temperatures drop below freezing. And that’s going to continue through the week. Still looking for low temperatures in the mid-20s, and actually climatologically speaking, that is very normal. Normal temperatures for this time of year should have lows at about 25 and highs in the mid to upper 30s which is about what we’re gonna have even warming up to near 40 this week.

Swasey – You know, there were a couple of really lovely sunshiny days, you know, here over the weekend and then beginning of the week, is spring upon us?

Vaughan – Well, we are in meteorological spring which happened on March 1, but the real spring is still a little bit away. And really for this area of Southeast Alaska, we could still have winter pop back up with no problem even through early April. 

So right now for the next week, looking for rain during the day but overnight hours with the temperatures dropping as low, if precipitation does fall it will fall as snow. But everything’s looking pretty light so not any significant accumulations are expected at this time.

Swasey – So we do have some rain coming in this week?

Vaughan – We do. Dry weather ending by about Wednesday night and then pretty much chances of precipitation throughout the week with the wettest days being Thursday and Friday.

Swasey – So it’s the Buckwheat Ski Classic this weekend which takes place up in elevation up at Log Cabin, which is right by the Border Station there between the US and Canada at Fraser B.C. How is the weather looking for the Buckwheat on Saturday?

Vaughan – Saturday’s forecast is for rain and snow likely at the upper elevations all snow for sure.

Swasey – And then you know, looking at kind of a larger picture approach, people are starting to wonder is this going to be a warm dry summer in the upper Lynn Canal? Or are we going to have, you know, a cold wet rainy summer? Do you have any long-term prognostications for us?

Vaughan – Well, I’m not quite sure about the whole summer outlook at this point. But the spring, as far as kind of March, it’s looking like there’s better chances that we’re going to be colder than normal. And just a slight tilt towards looking like we might be drier than normal. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t get a really good snowstorm.

Swasey – You know, anecdotally over my time here in Skagway I have noticed that if the spring tends to be cooler than normal, then the summer often tends to be warmer. So we’ll see. I don’t know. I mean, obviously, that’s just you know, my opinion.

Vaughan – Well, it’ll be exciting to see, we’ll talk again in the fall and see if you are right.

Swasey – Great, hold me to it. Kimberly, thanks so much for the weather update, I appreciate it.

Vaughan – Thank you.

For more information visit weather.gov.