textproduct: Juneau

SYNOPSIS

Key Messages:

- High pressure out in the Gulf will weaken shift south and east through the weekend, with a return of cooler onshore marine air, with pockets of fog and drizzle.

- Seasonable temperatures this weekend across the north with highs in the in upper 50s to low 60s. Across the south, still mild for Saturday with highs in the mid 60s to mid 70s, then trending a cooler on Sunday with highs generally in the 60s.

- A return to a cooler, more active weather pattern for next week with multiple fronts pushing through southeast Alaska.

LONG TERM

/ Tuesday through Saturday / Flow pattern aloft shifts more zonal headed into midweek that will mean quicker system transitions. A stronger feature for late Monday to Tuesday then Wednesday. A trailing feature along the boundary will likely run along the feature, and then across the southern panhandle or into British Columbia. Behind that, looks like SEAK may get another break in the weather, that means we are still waiting for the SEAK fall to arrive.

Rainfall totals for the Tuesday to Wednesday time frame are looking to be maybe 1.5 to 2.25 inches for the 24 hr and up to maybe 1 inch for the different portion of the panhandle.

Precipitation will be tapering off Thursday and skies bringing more breaks and what is looking to be start of dry weekend, based on the current solutions.

AVIATION

Flying conditions this evening are very location dependent as a marine layer has set up across most of the outer coast and is working into parts of the Inner Channels. With this marine layer, ceilings have been dropping from VFR down to IFR and LIFR. Some visibility drops have been noted along with some light precipitation falling but the biggest concern will remain the ceilings during the overnight hours. Heading into the morning, ceilings should start to improve somewhat but there is a chance that the lowered ceilings could persist. The most likely place we see this happen would be along the outer coast where the marine layer has been around longer.

MARINE

Outside Waters: Ridging over the Central and Eastern gulf gradually weakens and a new front moves in from the west toward the latter half of the weekend. Winds that will initially be westerly on Saturday will start to switch to a S and SE direction on Sunday as the new front moves in from the W. This front is not very strong as winds are expected to only top out around 20 kt, though a small area of winds up to 25 kt is expected to develop east of Kayak Island Sunday night into Monday. Winds turn back to the SW on Monday night and Tuesday as the first front passes through. Seas are not expected to be very high with max combined seas topping out around 7 to 8 ft mainly in the southern gulf with a low SW swell of around 3 to 4 ft. Little in the way of change is expected for waves and swell heights over the next few days even with the front moving through. Only other concern for the gulf waters will be lower visibilities due to fog associated with the marine layer clouds that will push further into the inner channels tonight into Sunday.

Inner Channels...Rather quiet weather for the inner channels with mostly N and W winds to 15 kt for the next few days and seas of 3 to 4 ft or less. Lynn Canal is the exception with a more southerly wind direction from a stout sea breeze coming up Taiya Inlet, with Skagway seeing isolated gusts up to 30 kt through the early evening. Highest winds and seas associated with the various sea breeze circulations Saturday afternoon will be largely absent Sunday afternoon as marine layer clouds from the gulf will have spread over most of the panhandle (particularly the north) severely hampering similar development. Otherwise visibility reductions (down to 1 mile or so) from marine fog will be the main concern again especially late at night and early in the morning Sunday where marine layer clouds have invaded the area. .

AJK WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

PUBLIC...None. MARINE...Small Craft Advisory for PKZ641-652-661-672.