Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Larsen Bay, AK

.SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHWEST ALASKA/BERING SEA/ALEUTIANS (Days 1 through 3/Today through Sunday)...

The persistent northerly flow continues over Southwest Alaska and the Bering Sea. Generally, Southwest Alaska and the western Bering Sea will stay dry, while the Alaska Peninsula and eastern Aleutians will contend with snow showers through today as a shortwave tracks southwards through the eastern Bering and into the northern Pacific. Winds along the Alaska Peninsula and eastern Aleutians remain breezy, allowing for the continued possibility for mild blowing snow and reduced visibilities through this afternoon and evening before snow showers diminish.

For the remainder of the weekend, conditions dry out while the same pattern of ridging across the western Bering and northerly flow across the eastern Bering and Southwest Alaska continues.
This will mark a prominent shift to a relatively inactive pattern across Southwest Alaska, the Bering Sea, and the Aleutians. With ridging dominating the pattern, expect dry conditions across the region through the weekend, with cold northerly flow persisting.
By the end of the weekend, models have come into better agreement on an Arctic trough digging south across the Interior and into the western Gulf of Alaska. This will again allow for northerly winds to strengthen across Southwest Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula, and the eastern Bering Sea for Sunday into Monday. These stronger winds combined with low level cold air advection will lead to areas of heavy freezing spray in coastal waters along the ice edge.

-JH

.LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Monday through Thursday)...

The long-term forecast begins late Sunday with the persistent upper-level ridge over the western Bering and Aleutians remaining firmly entrenched over the region. Downstream, a positively tilted, elongated upper-level trough bisecting Southcentral and extending south into the Western Gulf and across the North Pacific.

Although the main surface low looks to be exiting the region, various vorticity maxima along the leading edge of the upper-level trough will help to develop and sustain compact, meso-scale surface lows across the northern Gulf along a stalled surface trough. Where, exactly, these features spin up are extremely difficult to pinpoint in the short-term, let alone the long-term forecast. However, any development of surface features will likely lead to lingering snow for places along the immediate coast and/or Kodiak Island. These features will also aid in strengthening the already increasing pressure gradient along the as cold air moves in from the interior, resulting in another round of very strong and gusty gap winds for typical locations into early next week.

A secondary upper-level trough will quickly dig south on the heels of the first, likely allowing any surface low development in the northern Gulf to further strengthen Monday into Tuesday, with light snow chances redeveloping for areas expected to see light snow this coming weekend. The bigger impact from this second upper-level trough, however, will be the return of arctic air streaming from the Interior across the Southern Mainland, with the strongest push of this arctic air late Sunday into Monday for Southwest Alaska and Monday into Tuesday for Southcentral.

As stated yesterday, uncertainty grows by early next week as to how quickly this trough closes off into an upper-level low as it moves south over the Gulf. If this feature does move quickly into the Gulf, an upper-level ridge may move over the Southern Mainland. Any upper-level ridge will likely shut off the cold air advection, at least aloft, and potentially allow for a slow but steady warm up by the end of the week.



AVIATION

PANC...VFR conditions with light and variable winds will persist through the TAF period.