textproduct: Anchorage

SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHCENTRAL ALASKA (Days 1 through 3)

Light rain will linger along the western Alaska Range and western Susitna Valley through mid-morning before tapering off by late morning. Elsewhere across Southcentral will remain on the drier side, with the exception of the Wrangell Mountains in the eastern Copper Basin, who will see light showers over the next couple of days. Temperatures today will remain around normal in the 60's and upper 50's along the coast. A series of easterly waves will move across Southcentral over the next few days, pulling warmer air from Interior Canada and bringing a warming trend to the Mainland. Temperatures will climb into the low 70's for inland areas on Thursday. By Friday, temperatures inland will reach into the mid-70's with upper 60's to low 70's for coastal areas, including Anchorage. Warming temperatures and clearing skies will allow for scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms across the Susitna Valley and the Copper River Basin for Friday. There is some uncertainty on the full potential of thunderstorms for Friday with the possibility of more or less thunderstorms depending on how much instability arises and the coverage of lingering cloud cover.

KM/JAR

LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Saturday through Tuesday)

The long-term pattern continues to look unsettled across the Bering Sea, Aleutian Chain, and across the Southern Mainland. A low in the Bering Sea spreads showers along the Aleutian Chain to the Southern Alaska Peninsula Saturday and Sunday. This system also brings showery conditions to Southwest Alaska by Sunday afternoon. At the same time, weak upper-level shortwaves lift northward from the Gulf of Alaska and across Southcentral Alaska. This will help produce showers across the Southcentral Interior Saturday and Sunday; namely the Copper River Basin and Susitna Valley. There could be enough instability in place Saturday and Sunday afternoon across the Copper River Basin and Susitna Valley to produce a few lightning strikes in more robust showery activity. There airmass across Southwest Alaska looks to be more stable than that across portions of Southcentral, therefore, lightning strikes are less of a threat there.

For Monday, the Bering low that brought showers across the Bering Sea, Aleutians, and Mainland Southwest Saturday through Monday, now sends it energy into Southcentral by Monday evening. Therefore, expect showery conditions to continue across much of Southcentral Monday evening through much of Tuesday.

Back to the west, a stronger North Pacific low and front push sustained southeasterly gale-force winds with storm-force gusts into the Western Aleutians and western Bering by Monday morning. Also accompanying this system will be moderate to heavy rain at times. Rain and gusty winds move to Adak/Atka by Monday afternoon and evening and to Unalaska/Nikolski by Tuesday morning.

AVIATION

PANC...VFR conditions and light winds will persist. Southerly winds this morning will become westerly by late morning.