Fierce Winds, High Seas of Bering Sea Storm Pounding NW Alaska...

The Bering Sea "Super Storm" continues to hammer away at the west-central and northwestern coast of Alaska at midday. This video taken from Nome (and I don't recommend doing this) pretty well says it all:

The extremely low pressure and strong winds with this storm have been phenomenal.  Check out this graph of observations from a buoy located at Red Dog Dock, AK (which is North of Nome along the Northwestern coast):

As I've pointed out on the graph, winds have gusted in excess of 80 mph, and the barometer is bottoming out the chart, currently at 28.82 inches of mercury - and still falling.

Another impressive buoy chart comes from the Norton Sound at Nome:

A minimum pressure of 28.66 inches of mercury was observed before the barometer started to rise again.  Winds are gusting between 65 and 70 mph, with snow still falling.

Storm surge of 10-12 feet is taking place along the northwestern and west-central coast, with waves as high as 40+ feet out over the Bering Sea.

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Bering Sea "Super Storm" Pounding Northwest Alaskan Coast...

The above infrared satellite image shows the Bering Sea Super Storm slamming the coast of Alaska this morning. The lowest surface pressure I could find on recent observations was 28.18 inches of mercury at the Tin City Airways Facility, on the Northwest coast:

The winds at the same location have gusted in excess of 80 mph during the early morning hours (dashed green line on the image below, scale on the left hand side) and are currently sustained at 55 mph with gusts to over 65 mph:

A bit further South, in Nome, snow and blowing snow are taking place, and the current radar shows widespread precipitation extending well offshore, yet to move inland:

Winds are sustained near 40 mph with gusts up to 55 mph in Nome.  They have gusted over 60 mph at times during the overnight and early morning hours:

The pressure in Nome is currently 28.69 inches of mercury, a drop of over 1 inch of mercury in the last 10-12 hours:

The storm will continue to pound the western and northern portions of the state today, particularly along the coastline where extensive beach erosion and storm surge flooding will take place, along with locally heavy blowing and drifting snow.

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Bering Sea "Super Storm" to Pound West Coast of Alaska....

An intense storm system in the Bering Sea, dubbed the "Super Storm", is taking aim on Alaska and promises to deliver powerful storm surge, damaging winds and heavy snow to the western coast during the next 24 hours.  The center of the storm is noted by the yellow arrow on the latest infrared satellite image above.

The central pressure of this system is deepening rapidly, and is forecast to reach into the 940 millibar range tonight.  To put this into perspective, Hurricane Hugo, which impacted South Carolina in 1989 had a minimum central pressure of 934 millibars (and winds of 140 mph).

Sustained winds of 80 mph with gusts around 100 mph are forecast along the coastal areas at the height of the storm later tonight and into Wednesday.


A data buoy in the Bering Sea, at 57.1 North / 177.8 West recently recorded a maximum wave height of 40 feet, as noted in the observation below:

Waves won't be quite that high when they impact the western coast of Alaska, but will be impressive none-the-less. The graphs below show the forecast (black x's) wave heights of 9-17 feet in just a sampling of the coastal areas (scale in feet on the left hand side of each graph):

Extensive coastal flooding and beach erosion can be expected as a result of the high wave action and strong winds.  


The latest radar from the Nome, Alaska site shows a solid wall of precipitation advancing toward the region from the Southwest:

Locally heavy snows of 12-16 inches or more are forecast for much of the region in association with this storm, and the extreme winds will create white-out and blizzard conditions in many areas.

This storm has all of the markings of a truly a historic event.  The City of Nome is comparing the likely events to the current storm of record from November 1974, the strongest in over 100 years of record keeping.

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