Alaska, 2020

Winter Weather in Alaska, January 15 to 16, 2020

January 15 to 16, 2020 · NWS AFG · 1 event in 1 county or zone

A weather front moving across the Bering Sea brought strong winds along with blizzard conditions to Saint Lawrence Island.

The toll

Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
None recorded
Crop damage
None recorded
Events
1

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.

What happened

The episode as NWS AFG wrote it up.

A weather front moving across the Bering Sea brought strong winds along with blizzard conditions to Saint Lawrence Island.

What forecasters said that day

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 Fairbanks, AK wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Jan 14, 2:49 PM AKST, 23 hours 32 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Jan 14, 2:49 PM AKST, 23 hours 32 minutes before
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Event by event

1 winter weather. Local standard time, as filed.

Winter Weather, St Lawrence Is. Bering Strait

When
January 15, 2:21 PM AKST to January 16, 6:45 PM AKST
Where
St Lawrence Is. Bering Strait forecast zone
Reported by
AWOS

The combination of winds gusting over 60 mph, falling snow, and blowing snow resulted in blizzards conditions across Saint Lawrence Island. Visibility dropped to less than 1/4 of mile at Savoonga with winds gusts to 62 mph.

What these are

Winter Weather
Snow, sleet or freezing rain below warning levels that still caused disruption, damage or casualties.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

More

Every storm in Alaska in 2020Every state in 2020This day in weather historyWarnings in Alaska, January 2020

Sources

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 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 874419.