A surge of deep northerly flow and strong cold air advection brought strong and gusty gap winds to much of Southcentral Alaska between 1/17 and 1/18. The strongest wind gusts as high as 83 mph occurred through Thompson Pass on the evening of 1/17 at the peak of the northerly wind event.
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.
A surge of deep northerly flow and strong cold air advection brought strong and gusty gap winds to much of Southcentral Alaska between 1/17 and 1/18. The strongest wind gusts as high as 83 mph occurred through Thompson Pass on the evening of 1/17 at the peak of the northerly wind event.
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 Jan 15, 4:58 PM AKST, 11 hours 14 minutes earlier.
Southcentral and Southwest Alaska Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Anchorage AK 458 PM AKST Mon Jan 15 2024 .SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHCENTRAL ALASKA (Days 1 through 3/Tonight through Thursday morning)... Conditions across Southcentral are largely calm and benign this evening. Earlier fog responsible for quarter mile visibility from Anchorage down into Kenai has lifted, at least temporarily. However, a dense fog advisory has been extended through noon Tomorrow. However, in anticipation of fog redeveloping later this evening. If this were the only notable weather the next few days things across Southcentral would be awesome for this time of year. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A building ridge of high pressure over the Bering is forecast to expand into Southcentral through the end of the week. Beginning tomorrow evening, a shortwave trough is expected to slip southward and into the Gulf ahead of the building ridge, resulting in increasing northerly flow and cooler temperatures. Gap winds will become more prominent tomorrow night into Wednesday morning. A high wind watch has been issued for Valdez and Thompson Pass in anticipation of increased winds. Additionally, gusty conditions will exist across all of the other usual gap wind vulnerable locales. Seward, Whittier, the Copper River Delta, and the Mat Valley should all experience gusts of up to 50 mph, even if the higher gusts occur for only a short period. Otherwise, windy conditions across Southcentral will linger into the second half of the week. Otherwise, dry conditions will prevail through the end of the week. Any fog and stratus that impacts Southcentral tonight and tomorrow should begin to clear out by tomorrow evening as northerly flow increases across the region. && .SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHWEST ALASKA/BERING SEA/ALEUTIANS (Days 1 through 3: Tonight through Thursday)... A very benign pattern is expected to take shape over the Bering Sea and Southwest as a strong upper ridge already in place over the southern Bering Sea becomes even more amplified and shifts slowly northwest through much of the upcoming week. For the shorter term, a rapidly weakening cold front draped between the central Bering and Norton Sound will make rapid progress east into the Kuskokwim Delta later tonight as winds ahead of it quickly diminish from 30 kts to 20 kts or less between the Pribilofs and Kuskokwim Delta Coast. As the front moves onshore, a band of very light precipitation will advance east and inland across the Kuskokwim Delta late tonight into Tuesday morning. The northern fringes of the Lower Kuskokwim Valley will also possibly see a short window for very light snow as the front brushes past later on Tuesday morning. Mid to upper levels will stay fairly dry as this front moves through with more moist low levels, and this may favor some drizzle or freezing drizzle mixing in with snow at times across the Y-K Delta early on Tuesday morning. Any icing amounts should be no more than a trace, but communities across the Kuskokwim Delta should still be wary of possible slick spots forming on Tuesday morning. Otherwise, the main story will be the very strong upper level ridge that will expand across the entire outlook area between Tuesday and Thursday. Winds as strong as gale force will develop around the periphery of the ridge as shortwaves rotate around it, including along and south of the Aleutian Chain and AKPen from Monday and persisting nearly steady-state through Thursday. A strong low level inversion will likely develop as temperatures aloft gradually warm under the persistent upper ridging, while temperatures at the surface change little beyond the cool down behind the frontal passage across across Southwest on Tuesday evening. However, at this time low stratus and fog do not look especially favored with a fairly dry low level air mass, so much of the region could be treated to a rare string of mostly sunny days. && .LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Friday through Monday)... An upper-level ridge will be situated over Southern Alaska and the Bering Sea, suppressing active weather across our region through next week. While the high pressure is in place through the remainder of this workweek, a clear and cool pattern will prevail for most of Southcentral and Southwest Alaska. With the high pressure system centered over Southwest Alaska, models are keying in on some low pressure system originating from the Gulf of Anadyr and the Northern Pacific to move up the western- most Bering sea and ride the northern edge of the ridge into Western Alaska. Pockets of energy are coming up and over the northern side of the ridge, bringing up the winds across Southcentral and out of the local gaps. Potentially strong and gusty winds with colder temperatures will likely be the impact felt for Southcentral and Southwest through the latter half of the week into the weekend. Areas of outflow winds develop along the Alaska Peninsula and Southcentral Coasts, with gale force gap winds through the Barren Islands and Shelikof Strait and along the Alaska Peninsula Coast into the Eastern Aleutians developing for Thursday and diminishing Friday. Gaps such as Seward, Thompson Pass, and Matanuska Valley will be feeling some gusty winds by Friday potentially diminishing by the early weekend. Model solutions are suggesting an unusual retrograde of the ridge, advancing the high pressure to the northwest into the weekend. By Saturday afternoon, there is the potential for a new low to approach coastal Southcentral from the Gulf of Alaska, however uncertainty on this system remains high. As the new low pressure system develops in the Gulf early next weekend, the potential for moderate to heavy snow to return to the Prince William Sound area by late this weekend into early next week. -CL && .AVIATION... PANC...Calm and variable winds will persist through the TAF period. Conditions are favorable for fog development until winds increase late tomorrow night and Wednesday morning. Fog could move into the terminal at any time during the TAF period, dropping vis and cigs as low as LIFR. &&
1 high wind. Local standard time, as filed.
A Department of Transportation (RWIS) observation site along the Richardson Highway in Thompson Pass recorded a gust to 83 mph at 9:30 PM AKST 1/17. Gusts as high as 70 mph were also recorded at multiple sites in the port of Valdez from the evening of 1/17 to very early morning of 1/18.
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, January 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: 1161405.