Hundreds of people have combed the terrain near Big Lake, but there’s still no sign of LaVerne and Van Pettigen.
Anchorage hit 80 degrees Tuesday night, beating a record set in 1979, according to the National Weather Service.
One party’s camping gear was blown away in the wind. The other’s shelter was destroyed, and they couldn’t start a fire. The Rescue Coordination Center launched from Anchorage but had to turn back due to "extreme conditions".
January has so far been colder than average and the trend is expected to continue, breaking the 22-month trend of consecutively warmer-than-normal monthly temperatures.
It’s not often that Southcentral Alaska residents wake to thunder in the middle of the night. But what forecasters are calling an unusual storm moved from the Talkeetna Mountains into the Matanuska Valley and then Anchorage and south to the Kenai Peninsula from Wednesday night into Thursday morning. At least one lightning-caused structure fire was reported.
“It’s been hot, it’s been dry, and it’s been windy. And those winds gusts of 20 miles per hour, it’s kind of funneled through the Andreafsky River drainage,” said Beth Ipsen. Federal entities sent in more firefighters this week, and some residents are thinking about preparing their go-bags.
Lightning strikes seen Monday in Cook Inlet and on the Kenai Peninsula were heading toward South Anchorage, a meteorologist said.
A storm bringing strong wind, rain and snow to Southcentral Alaska on Tuesday caused power outages from Anchorage to Whittier and damaged some homes on the Anchorage Hillside. The weather service reported a peak gust of 133 mph on Sunburst mountain on the western Kenai Peninsula.
“We typically don’t see this type of pattern in September,” an Anchorage meteorologist said. Anchorage's record high temperature was broken on both Friday and Saturday. More...
While industry has had to adapt to changes, many locals are still struggling to find a new normal amidst the shifting seasons.
The first half of June was Anchorage’s windiest in more than 50 years, the result of an unusually stormy spring in Alaska.
A wind gust of 113 mph was recorded Monday morning along the Seward Highway near Potter Marsh. Above-freezing temperatures are making side streets icy.
Recent storms and warm seas melted a vast stretch of ice in the Bering Sea, leaving some islands surrounded by water when they should be locked in ice.
Forecasters say they are measuring near-record moisture in a storm system expected to bring heavy rain and wind to the region, ramping up Friday night and into Saturday.
The average temperature in July was 48.4 degrees — 6.7 degrees above normal, with 11 hot days in a row. Such extreme warmth can accelerate the greening and permafrost thaw on the North Slope.
The statewide average temperature in December was 19.4 degrees, 15.7 degrees above the 20th century average.
Winds of up to 85 mph ripped up the Southwest Alaska coast on Friday, upending smokehouses, tearing electric lines and flinging a house across the road.
A September storm caused damage in Utqiagvik, and Gov. Bill Walker declared a disaster there last month.
While Anchorage was getting hammered by wind, snow was piling up in the Susitna Valley — with a whopping 4 feet of snow at Hatcher Pass, according to a rough estimate.
It's coming up to peak flood season in BC with extra thick snowpack melting into rivers. On top of that, an atmospheric river is coming.
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