A large weather system bringing high winds and heavy rain is set to move through the upper Lynn Canal later this week. KHNS’ Mike Swasey checked in with federal meteorologist Pete Boyd in Juneau for the details.

Swasey – Pete there are big storms coming through later this week. Can you give us the rundown on what’s about to hit Skagway and Haines?

Boyd – Sure can. This is is about a once-a-year type storm within the climatological normals, but it’s going to be pretty strong (while) moving through. And it’s one of the first ones of this strength we’re seeing for the season.

A big thing we’re going to be getting from this is a lot of increased winds. Haines and Skagway definitely have the potential to start seeing sustained winds upwards of 20 to 30 mph with potential gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour. We’re not ruling out getting higher than that.

Along the Lynn Canal area, we’re definitely looking at some gale force winds with the strongest really starting to occur late Friday night, Saturday morning. In addition to the winds, we’re going to see a lot of rain from this starting early Friday morning with the first hit of rain. 

We will probably see some total accumulations of about a little over an inch. Then as the main band starts moving through early Saturday, once again, we’re going to start seeing some rainfall accumulations of an additional inch, maybe an inch and a half. The good news is we start to see things taper off Sunday into Monday.

Swasey – So there’s a lot to unpack in here. First of all, let’s start with the wind since you started there. What direction are we looking at winds coming out of are they coming out of the South are they are variable what’s happening with these gusts?

Boyd – We’re going to start seeing these as southerly winds with a little bit of an easterly component, but the majority will be southerly winds.

Swasey – And then you talked about rainfall, are we looking at flooding possibilities?

Boyd – At this point, we’re not concerned about any flooding potential. Now depending on if certain grounds are unstable, we cannot rule out any type of mudslide.

However, these rainfall rates are climatologically normal, these happen pretty much every fall. And they’re not what we would call, say, like a 10-year or a 25-year event. They’re a little closer to a one-year event. So nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year. This will definitely impact any kind of air travel or marine travel. So anybody planning on doing any traveling at that point should use extra caution.

Swasey – How big is this system? What’s the overall area that’s going to be impacted by this?

Boyd – We’re talking the entire panhandle, everywhere from down to Ketchikan up to Yakutat.

Swasey – How about our Canadian friends up in Whitehorse?

Boyd – Our Canadian friends up in Whitehorse are lucky at this point. They may see some of the residual rainfall, they shouldn’t be seeing the really strong or high winds that the coastal areas are seeing.

Swasey – Okay, and finally is Thursday looking like just a pretty typical overcast day?

Boyd – That’s correct. Early Thursday, a bit of a break, and then as we start moving into Friday, we get the first kind of pre-frontal wave and then the main system moving in Friday and Saturday. 

Swasey – Pre-frontal wave, that sounds like a cool sludgecore band I’d like to see.

Boyd – Yeah, there’s a lot of good weather terms, I’m sure a lot of bands you need to grab some of those names pretty soon.

Swasey – Pete, thanks so much for the call. I appreciate it. Have a great afternoon. 

Boyd – No problem.

For an up to the minute forecast visit weather.gov.