Autumn weather is bringing rain and cooler temperatures to Southeast Alaska this week. KHNS’ Mike Swasey talked with federal meteorologist Kayla Tinker from the National Weather Service in Juneau for the latest forecast.

Swasey – Kayla looking a little soggy to start the week in the upper Lynn Canal does the whole week look this way?

Tinker – For the most part, we have showers up until it looks like there should be a break sometime on Saturday. So, fingers crossed that the timing with that still looks good. 

Swasey – Wait, are you talking sunshine on the weekend? Or are you like, it’s just not gonna be raining?

Tinker – I think right now we have that the showers go away Saturday morning and it becomes partly cloudy and then we could see some sun end of the day Saturday and into Sunday.

Swasey – What sort of weather do we have then in the meantime, are we looking at wind? Are we looking at heavy rain? Are we looking at flooding? What are we looking at?

Tinker – Sure, so the heaviest wind and rain will be on Tuesday into Tuesday night. But for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it should just be more of a showery period with, you know, marine winds being 15 knots or less.

Swasey – Alright, so you know we’ve entered the autumnal season. The temperatures are starting to drop. How far down are we going to go at night?

Tinker – Our highs during the day will be around the mid-40s and lows right now through this week we’ll be mid-30s. If we do have some sky clearing that’s anticipated on Sunday, Sunday night’s lows could be closer to freezing.

Swasey – Has thee been, I know I woke up and saw frost on the ground one morning, has there been an official frost that’s been recorded yet?

Tinker – I can’t remember about Haines and Skagway specifically, but I know that day that you’re talking about, we saw that here in Juneau as well. On average here in Juneau, the first below 32 is the end of September so we were a little bit later than that this year but we might see that again later this week.

Swasey – We’ve had big snowstorms on Halloween are we looking for a big Halloween snowstorm again this year?

Tinker – Fingers crossed we won’t see a big Halloween storm like we did last year but the climate outlook for, you know, this month and also the next few months is (for) colder than normal temperatures. So we do see that snow line, you know, our snow level dropping down to near-surface level. Actually today Hyder, Alaska did receive 1.4 inches of snowfall, so nothing is out of the question.

Swasey – Hyder is down south, and they’re getting snow. Oh, wow. I mean, I know the interior got snow. Let’s say we want to try and make a trip up to the Yukon this weekend from Haines or Skagway. How is it looking up over the mountain passes?

Tinker – You could be seeing snow Friday morning, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning up by the Klondike highway. If we get that clearing out Saturday into Sunday, though, we might have those colder temperatures, but there shouldn’t be any precipitation. But yeah, the Klondike did see some snow. We did have that Winter Weather Advisory out for them last week and that was our first Winter Weather Advisory of the season.

Swasey – Oh wow. And so are you talking about a lot of snow or just the dusting up there?

Tinker – Just a dusting. Like I said it should be clearing out through the weekend so they might not see any snow at all. 

Swasey – All right. Kayla Tinker, thanks so much for the phone call this morning and have a wonderful week of soggy Southeast weather.

Tinker – Yes, you too and we’ll chat again in a couple of weeks.

For a more up to the minute forecast visit weather.gov. The geophysical institute is calling for high levels of Aurora on Tuesday and Active levels on Wednesday, but you’ll need to find clear skies to see them.