Kodiak Island saw wind speeds of nearly 80 miles per hour Tuesday, Oct. 29, as a strong storm in the Gulf of Alaska swept across communities from the Aleutians to Anchorage. It was the strongest wind event to hit Kodiak during the month of October in decades.
Across town on Tuesday, Oct. 29, reports came in of blowing debris and trash cans, downed telephone lines, and trees blown over by the strong gusts according to Kodiak Police Department’s Chief Tim Putney.
The island was under a high wind warning from the National Weather Service for a portion of the day, from noon to 8 p.m., which called for northwest winds 30 to 50 mph and gusts up to 80 mph.
NWS stated that these strong winds might move loose debris, damage property, cause power outages and even make driving difficult for high profile vehicles.
The local wind speed peaked at 78 mph – a gust recorded at the Kodiak Airport on Tuesday afternoon. Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy’s (ACCAP) climatologist Rick Thoman said that’s not unusual for the island, but it is unusual to see this early in the season.
“There have been stronger winds but not in the month of October," Thoman stated. "They are more in the November through January period when we have stronger ones.”
Thoman also pointed out that the strong winds were consistent throughout the day on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
He said these conditions were brought on by a storm that came up from south of Cold Bay over the weekend, and was centered east of Kodiak by Tuesday afternoon. This was the same low that brought large amounts of snow to Anchorage and Kenai area before dissipating.
“So between a deep low, that strong contrast in temperatures across the Gulf of Alaska, that’s conducive to bringing down strong winds right to the ground," Thoman said. "And for Kodiak you also have the winds coming down off the higher terrain to the west of the city of Kodiak.”
KCAW and KRBD radio reported similar conditions in Sitka and Ketchikan although Southeast communities seemed to avoid the worst of the storm, with winds peaking between 40 and 60 mph there on Oct. 29.
Shannon Kearney, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard Base Kodiak, said despite the high winds on Tuesday, there were no reports of vessels in distress or Air Station Kodiak responses.
