Blizzard season is off to an early start in Alaska's capital for that kind of thing: Kaktovik, on Alaska's eastern Arctic coast. Snow has been flying since Thursday morning, and winds increased to 50 mph yesterday evening (with gusts to 60 mph). Thanks to reader Mike for bringing this to my attention.
October is rather early for this kind of weather in Kaktovik, and it's been more than 10 years since such high winds were observed in October. In winter proper it's more common, with more than 5% of days seeing sustained winds over 45 mph in November through February.
Here's the meteorological setup: high pressure over western and central Alaska, and a deep low pressure system over Banks Island (as of 4pm AKST yesterday). My clumsy annotation shows the direction of the strong pressure gradient, and Barter Island's location is indicated with the red dot: click to enlarge.
Thank you Richard. I was wondering if this was a normal blizzard or an early one. Being this is my first winter in Kaktovik I don't know what is and isn't normal. The locals tell me that was a good one and others say perfectly normal but wait until winter. On a side note I am impressed at the fast warm up and possible rain coming tomorrow. It was 0 this morning. Got to love these tight little intense high pressure systems in the fall. Mike.
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