The low that brought high winds to Southeast Alaska beginning on Friday night January 3, stalled off shore. A series of frontal waves rotating around the Low swept through the Panhandle on Sunday January 5.
Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS AJK wrote it up.
The low that brought high winds to Southeast Alaska beginning on Friday night January 3, stalled off shore. A series of frontal waves rotating around the Low swept through the Panhandle on Sunday January 5. The strongest and last of these frontal waves moved northward through Southeast Alaska Sunday evening. Once again advisory criteria winds occurred throughout much of the Panhandle. Hurricane force wind gusts were measured in the Ketchikan area and caused significant tree damage, power outages and even caused some damage in the harbor. Peak wind gusts to 81 mph were measured on top of the Ketchikan airport terminal (about 4 stories above the ground). In the Ketchikan harbor, peak wind gusts reached 75 mph. The Hydaburg AWOS recorded a peak wind gust to 60 mph.
The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.
NWS Juneau, AK wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jan 5, 10:45 AM AST, 10 hours 45 minutes earlier.
SOUTHEAST ALASKA FORECAST DISCUSSION
1045 AM AST SUN JAN 5 2003
.SYNOPSIS...
.SHORT RANGE...NC TO WINDS INC WARNINGS. NO SHIPS FOUND YET NEAR
THE CENTRAL PRESSURE BUT THE LOW INVOF 50/148 SHOULD ALREADY BE
DOWN TO ABOUT 960 MB. THIS LOW HAS MATURE OCCLUSION WRAPS AROUND
IT STRETCHED OUT TO THE NNE AND SSW WITH A PROBABLE TRIPLE
POINT ABOUT 100 NM OFFSHORE OF PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND AT THIS
TIME. NOTE HYDABURG HAS ALREADY RECEIVED G64KT.
THE WINDS IN FORECASTS ARE HIGHER THAN MODELS AND THE CORRECTION
STILL LOOKS ABOUT RIGHT BASED ON WIND SHEAR AT BIORKA RADAR.
THIS SHEAR, USING AN ASSUMPTION OF QUASIGEOSTROPHIC FLOW, GIVES
VALUES OF BAROCLINITY ABOUT HALF AGAIN HIGHER THAN THE ETA
AND AVN MODELS. WHAT THIS MEANS IS THE PREVIOUS SHIFT DID
A GOOD JOB INTERPRETING SATELLITE IMAGERY AND SURFACE DATA
AND, IN EFFECT, ANTICIPATED THE MEASUREMENTS OF THE HIDDEN
LAYER, BETWEEN THE SURFACE AND THE CIRRUS, BEFORE THEY BECAME
AVAILABLE.
.LONG RANGE...LOW PRESSURE IN THE GULF MOVES INTO THE YUKON BY
MON MORNING WITH A TRAILING TROUGH OVER THE EASTERN GULF. WINDS
WILL STILL BE STRONG ACROSS THE PANHANDLE EARLY MON MORNING THEN
DIMINISH DURING THE DAY AS THE TROUGH MOVES ACROSS THE PANHANDLE
AND WEAKENS. ONSHORE FLOW AND THE WEAKENING TROUGH WILL KEEP
SHOWERS GOING IN ALL ZONES BUT COLDER AIR MOVING IN BEHIND THE
TROUGH WILL CHANGE THE PRECIPITATION FROM RAIN TO SNOW ACROSS THE
NORTHWEST AREAS DURING THE DAY AND ACROSS THE REMAINDER OF THE
NORTHERN HALF OF THE PANHANDLE INTO MON NIGHT.
A WAVE WILL FORM ON THE BAROCLINIC ZONE THAT STRETCHES FROM
CENTRAL BRITISH COLUMBIA INTO THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC ON TUE.
MODELS HAVE BEEN TRACKING THIS WAVE SOUTH OF THE PANHANDLE WITH
THE EXCEPTION OF THE LATEST AVN WHICH TAKES IT ACROSS THE
SOUTHERN PANHANDLE. AT THIS POINT, WILL KEEP RAIN LIKELY ACROSS
THE SOUTHERN HALF THE PANHANDLE. THE NORTHERN HALF MAY SEE
OFFSHORE FLOW DEVELOP DURING THE DAY DEPENDING ON HOW FAR NORTH
THE LOW TRACKS. THE EXCEPTION TO THIS WILL BE OVER THE NORTHWEST
AREAS WHERE A WAVE FORMING ON THE ARCTIC BOUNDARY IN THE NORTHERN
GULF WILL BRING SNOW SHOWERS THAT WILL SPREAD INTO THE NORTHERN
HALF OF THE PANHANDLE TUE NIGHT.
HIGH PRESSURE MOVES OVER BRITISH COLUMBIA ON WEDNESDAY WITH
OFFSHORE FLOW BRINGING DECREASING CLOUDS ACROSS THE SOUTHERN HALF
OF SOUTHEAST ALASKA. THE NORTHERN HALF MAY STILL BE INFLUENCED BY
AN OCCLUDED FRONT MOVING INTO THE CENTRAL GULF THAT MAY BRING
CLOUDS AND THE CHANCE FOR SOME LIGHT RAIN OR SNOW.
AN UPPER LEVEL RIDGE MOVES OVER WESTERN CANADA FOR THE EXTENDED
PERIOD WITH A DEEP UPPER LEVEL LOW OVER THE BERING SEA. THIS WILL
BRING THE RETURN OF SOUTHERLY FLOW ALOFT FROM THE EASTERN PACIFIC
INTO THE EASTERN GULF WHICH WILL BRING A SERIES OF FRONTS AND LOW
PRESSURE SYSTEMS INTO THE PANHANDLE LATE WEEK INTO THE WEEKEND.
.AJK...WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
PUBLIC...HIGH WIND WARNING ALL ZONES: 21-29.
MARINE...STORM WARNING SRN 1A3 (SUMNER STRAIT AND CLARENCE
STRAIT), ALL 1B, ALL 2A.
GALE REMAINING 1A1 - 1A3.
JT/TAR2 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Alaska in 2003Every state in 2003This day in weather historyWarnings in Alaska, January 2003
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5341219, 5341218.