High pressure centered over the Alaska Gulf coupled with a strong low pressure and front moving over Southwest Alaska helped drive strong southeast winds into the Anchorage area for much of the day on 2/13. The strongest confirmed wind gust to 84 mph occurred on the Anchorage Hillside in Potter Valley.
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 AFC wrote it up.
High pressure centered over the Alaska Gulf coupled with a strong low pressure and front moving over Southwest Alaska helped drive strong southeast winds into the Anchorage area for much of the day on 2/13. The strongest confirmed wind gust to 84 mph occurred on the Anchorage Hillside in Potter Valley. An unverified report of an 113 mph gust from a personal weather station was received from Bear Valley to the north, with damage to a roof also reported in this area due to the strong winds. Notably, strong wind gusts were able to mix down all the way to the rest of Anchorage, with a gust of 52 mph recorded at the Ted Stevens International Airport on 2/13 during the afternoon.
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 Anchorage, AK wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Feb 12, 5:03 AM AKST, 15 minutes earlier.
Southcentral and Southwest Alaska Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Anchorage AK 503 AM AKST Mon Feb 12 2024 .SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHCENTRAL ALASKA (Days 1 through 3: Today through Wednesday)... The general weather story for Southcentral Alaska through much of this week will be above normal temperatures and periods of gusty winds. This is due to stout southeasterly flow caused by a series of surface lows that will move from the North Pacific and through the far eastern Bering Sea through the period. This, in combination with a large, warm upper level ridge which is beginning to amplify over the Eastern Gulf of Alaska today and should close off tomorrow afternoon as a fairly strong upper level high centered near Yakutat. This upper level high will keep temperatures mild-to-warm over Southcentral as well as push the surface low track to the west. Looking a little closer at the details, the first of these lows is moving quickly this morning into Bristol Bay. This low actually has a double center and is elongating as it moves northward. To its south, a large plume of moisture can be seen moving northward toward the Alaska Peninsula. This setup is causing two main forecast questions. The first is how much of that plume of moisture will make it over Kodiak Island. Kodiak will get wet with the warm air and moisture, but successive model runs are edging the deepest moisture farther to the west, so Kodiak City may receive 1.5 to 2 inches of rainfall through tomorrow night, while areas farther south and west on the Island could see closer to 2 to 3.5 inches of rainfall during that timeframe. The farther west push of the low should help taper off the rain Tuesday night. The other big forecast question revolves around the wind in the Anchorage area this afternoon through Tuesday morning. There has been a High Wind Watch for potential gusts to 75 mph for the higher elevations around Anchorage. It is a close call as to whether winds will get to that High Wind threshold or fall a little bit short. The elongating and weakening nature of the low tracking west of Anchorage is not a very good high wind setup. However, there will still be a fairly long period of strong southeasterly winds and these winds will move over the Anchorage Bowl late this afternoon and persist into Tuesday morning at lower elevations. Higher elevations and southwest Anchorage are likely to see those strong southeasterly winds persist longer and last into Tuesday evening. For both areas, the winds are likely to peak between midnight tonight and 6 AM Tuesday morning. && .SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHWEST ALASKA/BERING SEA/ALEUTIANS (Days 1 through 3)... A short break in the weather this afternoon as the system which brought wind, rain and snow to Southwest Alaska has moved north over the Seward Peninsula. In its wake, expect diminishing winds and isolated snow showers mostly over the Kuskokwim River delta. Over the Bering, more of the same is expected. Light (by Bering standards) westerly to northwesterly winds and snow showers will persist as weak features move overhead and cold air producing steep lapse rates continues to move south out of the Gulf of Anadyr. A strong Pacific storm is expected to cross the Alaska Peninsula Monday morning. This will bring strong southeasterly winds and a mix of rain and snow. For Monday, Kipnuk and Toksook Bay could see a couple inches of snow. Togiak and Dillingham could see several inches of snow through Tuesday. For now, the most likely areas for rain are interior Bristol Bay and the Lower Kuskokwim Valley. Strong winds will increase temperatures above freezing for much of the Mainland, so high temperatures above freezing can be expected over the next 1-2 days. Moisture associated with this system looks to be fairly high due to the high amplitude pattern and southerly jet stream. For the most part the Alaska Peninsula will be spared from heavy rain due to downsloping off of the Aleutian Range, but Chignik could receive multiple inches of rain. For now, the bulk of the moisture will pass between Port Heiden, and Pilot Point over the western southwestern coast. && .LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Wednesday night through Saturday)... The long term begins with a stagnant upper-level ridge / trough pattern east to west across the state. A 560dm ridge anchored over the St. Elias Mountains Wednesday drifts northeast over the Yukon for Friday before weakening and elongating as it continues a slow push to the southeast over British Columbia. The broad trough over the Bering and Aleutians also remains in place through the end of the week. The result is a general west to southwesterly flow in the mid levels across the southern Bering and Aleutians shifting to a southerly flow from the western Gulf and Alaska Peninsula north along the west coast of Alaska. Various shortwaves embedded in the flow, along with a strong upper-level jet, are resulting in a seemingly continuous parade of surface lows and troughs moving from the North Pacific toward the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak, eventually moving farther north to the Bering Strait. This storm track favors periods of heavy precipitation, in the form of low elevation rain and mountain snow, from Kodiak Island to the Alaska Peninsula and along the south-facing hills and mountains of Southwest Alaska, due to upsloping. With multiple surface lows tracking north across the Alaska Peninsula, strong southeasterly gap winds and mountaintop winds are also likely, with the strongest of the gap winds across the Alaska Peninsula and through Kamishak Gap into the interior Bristol Bay region. The southeasterly flow will also promote periods of showers across the Kenai Mountains along with strong southeasterly gap winds, mainly through Turnagain Arm and across the Matanuska Valley. The greatest uncertainty comes closer to the weekend, as models try to weaken the ridge at differing times with the weaker, more easterly positioned ridge and upstream trough becoming more negatively tilted. This scenario would likely allow for storm systems to move farther north into the Gulf of Alaska with steadier precipitation moving toward the Southcentral coast. -TM && .AVIATION... PANC...VFR conditions to prevail through Tuesday despite the passage of a trough over Anchorage. LLWS is expected to develop later this morning as southeasterly winds quickly increase across Turnagain Arm and the Anchorage Hillside while light northerly surface winds remain over the terminal. LLWS then diminishes this afternoon, despite the continuance of stronger winds aloft, as the vertical wind profile eventually becomes uniformly out of the southeast direction. -BL &&
1 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
A COOP observer site recorded a wind gust to 84 mph during the evening of 2/13. Several other sites across the Anchorage Hillside recorded wind gusts between 60 and 80 mph, with an unverified report of an 113 mph gust from a PWS in Bear Valley along with possible roof damage to a structure.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in Alaska in 2024Every state in 2024This day in weather historyWarnings in Alaska, February 2024
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: 1163190.