Windstorm May Indicate Switch From Warm to Cold Winters

logo-w-sunburstKayla Desroches/KMXT

Rain and moderate weather has dominated Kodiak’s winters over the last couple of years, but that could be due to end this season.

The increase in snow and last weekend’s windstorm may mean that island weather has taken a tempestuous turn.

Michael Lawson, a general forecaster with the National Weather Service in Anchorage, says NOAA issued a high wind warning for the event, which means gusts of more than 70 miles an hour.

“Generally these come about by lots of cold air that’s pulled up over the mainland and we’ve been in a very, very cold pattern. Anytime that cold air can get displaced, usually by a low pressure system skirting pretty close to the island there, that’ll pull some of that arctic air down through Shelikof Strait and over the mountains and causes it to be accelerated.”

He says Saturday afternoon gusts at the airport reached 69 miles per hour and 75 miles per hour at the boat harbor.

Lawson says as long as cold air is in circulation, higher winds are a possibility, and Alaska IS having a colder winter this year.

“We’ve been very below average for quite a while now, [I] can’t speak exactly, but at least a month of below average temperatures, which is quite the change from the above-normal temperatures we were seeing before that.”

Lawson says fallen trees, downed lines, and flying debris are the main concerns in the case of high winds.

People posted to Facebook with tales of runaway dumpsters, and GCI did experience cuts to service according to director of corporate communications Heather Handyside.

“It sounds like on Friday due to the windstorm, we had three main lines go down due to trees and then about 25 to 30 individual drops, which means the lines from the home to the cable lines, and then we had some voltage fluctuations, which we believe resulted in some damage to our system.”

Handyside says GCI was able to repair the damage by late Sunday night.

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