Below normal, record-breaking cold for Southeast Alaska for the holidays

A van buried in snow along the Douglas Highway on Dec. 22, 2021, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/KTOO)

Southeast Alaska saw below average temperatures over Christmas weekend and even colder temperatures are expected in the first week of 2022.

It was zero degrees in Ketchikan on Saturday and Sunday of Christmas weekend. Both days were record-breaking cold.

“The old records were 6 degrees in 1964 on Saturday and 5 degrees all the way back in 1917 on Sunday,” National Weather Service meteorologist Ben Linstid told KRBD.

In addition to the cold, Ketchikan got a few inches of snow Sunday night during a storm that brought freezing rain and snow throughout Alaska’s panhandle. That was a fast-moving storm and there’s more where that came from. A winter storm on Wednesday will bring up to 6 inches of snow to Juneau.

“This is your heads-up … New Year’s Eve, it looks like there’s a bigger storm on the horizon,” Linstid said.

That one could bring up to a foot of new snow to Juneau by New Year’s Day. Cold air will follow that system with the potential to break more record low temperatures across the region in the first days of 2022.

Linstid said current conditions are influenced by La Niña, a weather pattern characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific that affects weather globally.

Jennifer Pemberton

Managing Editor, KTOO

I bring stories from the community into the KTOO newsroom so that all of our reporting matters. I want to hear my community’s struggles and its wins reflected in our coverage. Does our reporting reflect your experience in Juneau?

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