Marine Forecasts

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7 Day Forecast for Marine Location Near Anchor Point, AK

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Area Discussion for -

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Fxak68 pafc 241300 afdafc southcentral and southwest alaska forecast discussion national weather service anchorage ak 500 am akdt Sat aug 24 2019 Analysis and upper levels In the upper levels, the pattern has become much less chaotic over the past 24 hours. A longwave trough is over eastern alaska, with axis over the copper river basin and extending over prince william sound. The cutoff upper level low is a bit further south and west this morning, centered about halfway between the pribilofs and dutch harbor. A ridge is well west of the western aleutians, with associated ridging nosing in over the northern bering. Another trough extends southwestward from the upper level low into the north pacific. A zonal north pacific jet streak remains well south of the aleutians. The expected isolated to scattered shower activity in fact developed yesterday afternoon, primarily along the mountains, then those showers moved into a few of the valley areas, like palmer, late in the day. The trough that helped force that shower activity has now moved east to the copper river basin and prince william sound. Satellite imagery shows smoke from the swan lake fire now being directed south and east into the kenai mountains and seward. A dense smoke advisory remains in effect. A flood advisory for the snow glacier dammed lake release also remains in effect. Model discussion The models remain in excellent agreement through Sunday with the movement of the large scale lows and highs across southern alaska. Forecast challenges remain forecasting the movement and density of the wildfire smoke. Much of southern alaska continues to await the return of widespread precipitation, but unfortunately the weather pattern remains unsupportive. Thus, forecast confidence is high with relatively little going on to introduce uncertainty to the forecast. Aviation Panc...VFR conditions and light winds will persist for much of the day today. It's possible smoke may bring visibilities down slightly anytime during the day, but the reductions are not expected to be significant. Tonight, the winds will flip around back to the southwest and then southeast in the lower atmosphere. This is expected to result in the return of some smoke from the swan lake fire back to anchorage. The turnagain arm wind will strengthen Sunday morning, which should reduce the time when a threat of dense smoke will exist. Fire weather (southcentral) The north to northwest winds over the area fires will gradually diminish through the day today. On Sunday, the winds will return to the southeasterly direction, increasing to the 10 to 20 mph range through the gaps in the kenai mountains. This will cause the smoke from the swan lake fire to return towards the north, mainly into the susitna valley. There remains some question as to how much of the smoke gets into anchorage. It will certainly increase the chances of the smoke returning to anchorage, but it is by no means a slam dunk forecast. The turnagain arm wind may instead push the smoke westward over the inlet and block the worst of it from getting into anchorage and the matanuska valley. The southerly winds on Sunday may lead to worsening air quality in talkeetna and points north from the mckinley and deshka fires along with transported smoke from the swan lake fire as well. Southwesterly winds over the copper basin, especially by Sunday afternoon, may bring smoke from the tokaina fire near tazlina lake towards glennallen as well. Climate A rare cold weather statistic was set this past Thursday, the 22nd. Kenai airport dropped down to 32 degrees for a low, officially marking its first freeze of the season. This is 11 days earlier than the average (september 2nd). This was the 17th earliest first freeze in kenai recorded history, and the earliest first freeze there since 2000. In both 2004 and 2014, the first freeze happened on august 31st. Those were the only years since the turn of the century that the first freeze occurred before september. On the flip side, anchorage tied its all time record of consecutive days of low temperatures above 45 degrees this morning. It's now been 90 days since the last time the temperatures was 45 degrees or colder. This ties the 2015 and 1992 seasons. The forecast keeps low temperatures above that threshold for the foreseeable future. .Short term forecast southcentral alaska (days 1 through 3 today through Monday night)... the upper trough over southcentral this morning will exit eastward this afternoon, with a short-wave ridge building in behind it. Expect a dry day for most of the region with increasing sunshine and continued above normal high temperatures. There will be a few

diurnal showers as the trough exits, primarily across the southeastern copper river basin and mountains of eastern prince william sound. Gusty offshore winds in seward and whittier areas will lighten up during the afternoon. Tonight will start out clear and temperatures will quickly fall. Interestingly, all of this dry weather and clear skies has been leading to colder than normal night-time lows, with some isolated areas having reached freezing temperatures this past week. In a "normal" august, abundant clouds and rain usually lead to warmer temperatures at night. Anyway, it looks favorable for increasing clouds beginning late tonight and continuing through the day Sunday. This will be due to the combination of a short-wave trough tracking from the bering sea into the gulf and another short-wave dropping down from the northwest. The strongest forcing and bulk of rain will remain over the gulf of alaska once again. For southcentral, there is a chance of showers, primarily over prince william sound, the eastern kenai peninsula, and along area mountains. There could be a few light showers over the valleys, but as has been the case of late, anything that falls will be brief and light. The presence of clouds will lead to a somewhat cooler day. Both troughs will exit Monday with upper level ridging and offshore flow redeveloping. This may sound like a broken record, but the dry weather will continue. Short term forecast southwest alaska (days 1 through 3) A shortwave shifting south over the akpen overnight will give way to a ridge of high pressure building across southwest alaska for the weekend. This will result in partly cloudy and dry conditions across the region with any chance of an isolated shower mainly confined to the higher elevations of the kilbuck mountains and alaska range. Winds will also remain light through the weekend. Patchy fog is possible along the coast early this morning with more widespread patchy fog across the southwest early Sunday morning as the ridge axis settles across the area. Some increasing clouds and scattered showers along the coast are possible late Sunday into Monday as a weak shortwave rotates over the ridge. Short term forecast bering sea aleutians (days 1 through 3) High pressure over the far western aleutians will continue to slowly drift east through the weekend and into the first half of next week. Widespread low stratus and areas of fog will accompany this stable airmass as it tracks east. Ahead of this ridge, northerly winds will persist across the eastern bering as a series of shortwaves drops south bringing periods of rain to the eastern bering and aleutians through the weekend. As the ridge moves east over the central bering on Sunday, a front will slide over the western aleutians with rain and southeasterly small-craft advisory winds late Sunday through Monday. Marine (days 3 through 5: Monday through Wednesday) There is high confidence that a low forming just south of the alaska peninsula Sunday afternoon will traverse the gulf from west to east, reaching the alaska panhandle by Monday evening. This low will bring easterly small craft winds to the northern gulf coast for Monday. As the low departs to the east, a weak trough will remain over the gulf through midweek. Meanwhile in the bering, a ridge of high pressure moves over the eastern bering Tuesday afternoon, allowing a possible gale force low to approach the western bering Wednesday afternoon. At this time, there is low confidence regarding the strength and track of this bering low. .Long term forecast (days 4 through 7: Tuesday through Friday)... the general long-term pattern includes an elongated upper level trough over the mainland while a ridge builds over the bering. Several shortwaves will propagate across the southern mainland bringing mostly unsettled, showery conditions through the middle of next week. One key feature that model solutions have locked onto is a low entering the western bering Wednesday afternoon and strengthening as it progresses eastward through the end of the week. If this pans out, the ridge will be suppressed and a pretty significant pattern change would be underway, bringing more fall- like conditions to the southern mainland by the first weekend of september. Afc watches warnings advisories Public... Dense smoke advisory: 121 125. Flood advisory: 121 125. Marine... None. Fire weather... None. Synopsis and model discussion... Jpw southcentral alaska... Seb southwest alaska bering sea aleutians... Tm marine long term... Ko

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Weather Reporting Stations

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Stations	Dist	Age	Wind	Air Temp	Water Temp	Waves	Pressure	DewPt
APXA2	1 mi	67 min	N 4.1	55°F			1006 hPa	49°F
46108 - Central Cook Inlet - 175	12 mi	52 min			53°F	2 ft
OVIA2 - 9455500 - Seldovia, AK	24 mi	58 min			51°F		1005.6 hPa
HMSA2	25 mi	40 min	NNE 1.9 G 4.1	55°F			1005.3 hPa	44°F
HMRA2 - Kachemak Bay Reserve, AK	26 mi	82 min	ENE 2.9	53°F			1004 hPa	47°F
FILA2 - Flat Island Light, AK	31 mi	52 min	ESE 1 G 1.9	58°F			1006.4 hPa (+1.9)	51°F

Wind History for Nikiski, AK

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Airport Reports

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Airport	Dist	Age	Wind kt	Visibility	Sky/Weather	Temp	DewPt	Humidity	Pressure
Homer, Homer Airport, AK	20 mi	59 min	N 0	10.00 mi	Fair	59°F	48°F	67%	1005.9 hPa
Seldovia, Seldovia Airport, AK	24 mi	59 min	NNE 7	10.00 mi	Fair	58°F	48°F	70%	1005.9 hPa

Link to 5 minute data for PAHO

Wind History from AHO (wind in knots)

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Tide / Current Tables for Cape Ninilchik, Alaska

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Tide / Current Tables for Ninilchik, Alaska

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Weather Map and Satellite Images

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GOES Local Image of Alaska    EDIT
NOTE: East coast views moved to GEOS-16. They are experimental and not well supported by NOAA so they may not be correct so be warned. This change required redoing a large amount of the GOES code. If the image you are expecting is not showing, please let me know. You may need to use the EDIT function to update your location.
Link to Loop

Other links: Northern Pacific     Contential US     Full GOES-East

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Ground Weather Radar Station Kenai, AK

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Disclaimer: The information on this web site has not been checked for accuracy. It is for entertainment purposes only and should be independently verified before using for any other reason. There are five sources. 1) Documents and manuals from a variety of sources. These have not been checked for accuracy and in many cases have not even been read by anyone associated with L-36.com. I have no idea of they are useful or accurate, I leave that to the reader. 2) Articles others have written and submitted. If you have questions on these, please contact the author. 3) Articles that represent my personal opinions. These are intended to promote thought and for entertainment. These are not intended to be fact, they are my opinions. 4) Small programs that generate result presented on a web page. Like any computer program, these may and in some cases do have errors. Almost all of these also make simplifying assumptions so they are not totally accurate even if there are no errors. Please verify all results. 5) Weather information is from numerious of sources and is presented automatically. It is not checked for accuracy either by anyone at L-36.com or by the source which is typically the US Government. See the NOAA web site for their disclaimer. Finally, tide and current data on this site is from 2007 and 2008 data bases, which may contain even older data. Changes in harbors due to building or dredging change tides and currents and for that reason many of the locations presented are no longer supported by newer data bases. For example, there is very little tidal current data in newer data bases so current data is likely wrong to some extent. This data is NOT FOR NAVIGATION. See the XTide disclaimer for details. In addition, tide and current are influenced by storms, river flow, and other factors beyond the ability of any predictive program.