Southeast Alaska is seeing some unseasonably warm weather for this time of year.
Communities in the southern part of the region are under heat advisories for parts of this week, with temperatures forecast in the low 80s. That includes the Ketchikan area and communities on Prince of Wales Island.
Haines and Skagway in Lynn Canal in the northern part of the region also have advisories.
“We are definitely under a period of unseasonably high temperatures,” said Brooke Sullivan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau. “Normally, we’re under all that overcast and rainy weather. Usually around this time of year we’re starting to transition into, you know, some cooler temperatures.”
Dry, warm weather is due to high-pressure systems and stagnant winds, according to Sullivan. The Lynn Canal area is influenced by high pressure out of Canada. For other areas, it’s periods of high pressure in the Gulf of Alaska lasting several days at a time.
“We’re seeing that pattern persist, and don’t exactly have anything to attribute it to — not like any bigger cause or reason — but just this year, seeing high pressure lingering for a little bit longer into the season than normal,” Sullivan said.
Above average warm and dry conditions are expected to continue in the region for another three to four weeks.
“And then I think once we get into the fall, we’ll fall back into our pretty normal pattern where we start to see more atmospheric rivers back to our usual overcast, rainy conditions,” said Sullivan. “So at least we’re going to end the summer on a high note.”
While the weather is unusual in Southeast’s rainforest climate, Sullivan said the region is not yet considered to be in a drought.
