textproduct: Anchorage

LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Friday through Monday)

The long term looks to remain quite active, particularly for the Bering Sea, Aleutian Chain, and Southwest Alaska locations. By Friday, the global models are in fairly good agreement and depict ex-Typhoon Champi as a large, deep, and occluded low pressure system moving eastward across the Bering with its front quickly entering the Gulf of Alaska. As the front nears the Gulf coast, expect coastal ridging and a return of gap winds for Southcentral for the Turnagain Arm, Knik River Valley, and Copper River Basin. For the west, the biggest hazard with this system will be wind, and the GFS has storm force winds in the boundary layer Friday afternoon moving across the southern Bering and Central Aleutians on the backside of the system. The surface low will be weakening as it moves inland into Southwest Alaska, with strong northwesterly gap winds becoming a common theme for the Central and Eastern Aleutians by Saturday morning. Pattern recognition suggests that one place to watch will be Cold Bay, as northwest winds can be especially enhanced through the gap there. Expect gap winds elsewhere to be elevated, but generally decreasing in intensity through the favored bays and passes of the Alaska Peninsula through Saturday afternoon. Models also show (to some degree) a secondary low pressure system situated off the Kamchatka Peninsula for the weekend. Still quite a bit of spread on this system as the GFS remains the much more bullish/stronger solution while other model guidance continues to struggle resolving this system in terms of intensity and positioning. 850 mb temperature anomalies suggest that temperatures stay at or above average through the end of the long term for the both the west and east.

-AM

AVIATION

PANC...Mostly VFR conditions and light winds will persist. Fog is expected through this morning, bringing conditions down to IFR- LIFR. Fog is expected to lift later this morning. Scattered low clouds will persist through today.