The remnants of a hurricane in the Pacific will bring high winds and heavy rains to southern and central Southeast Alaska on Friday.
The storm is called Oho, and it’s moving rapidly across the Pacific toward Southeast Alaska. Thursday morning it had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, but was downgraded below tropical storm system status. The storm is forecast to weaken Friday morning, strengthen to near hurricane force through Friday evening, and weaken again through Saturday morning.
David Levin, a meteorologist intern at the National Weather Service forecast office in Juneau, described Oho’s path.
“The latest forecast track has it coming, making an approach west of Prince of Wales Island and then tracking kind of along the Southeast Alaska coast, generally northwestward and then finally coming inland over the northeast and eastern gulf coast area north of Cross Sound,” Levin said.
Levin said the storm is forecast to bring high winds to the southern panhandle on Thursday night and into Friday morning first near Prince of Wales Island, Ketchikan and Metlakatla and spreading north to Wrangell, Petersburg, Kake, Sitka, and Port Alexander by the middle of Friday morning.
“Right now it looks like the strongest winds are going to be over the south in the Craig, Klawock, Ketchikan, areas with winds of 40-50 miles an hour but gusting as high as 60-80 miles per hour. Those winds are also going to be felt in the central panhandle, Petersburg, Wrangell, Sitka area but more in the lines of 35-45 miles per hour sustained, looking at gusts as high as 55-75 miles per hour especially along the coastal areas as that system moves northwest.”
Heavy rains are also forecast with the hurricane remnants bringing 3 to 4 inches in the southern panhandle. The weather service has issued high wind warning for the southern part of the region. The storm is expected to move up the coast and out of the area by later Friday.
