All was quiet in Hillside subdivisions above Alaska's largest city on Friday evening, but the National Weather Service was once again warning of the lull before a storm. Hurricane-force winds were expected within 24 hours the agency said.
It Friday evening posted a high wind watch for Saturday evening along Turnagain Arm and higher elevations ... "(with) southeast winds 45 to 60 mph with possible gusts to 80 mph." Similar conditions last weekend ripped the roofs off houses, flattened forests, and crushed any thought of recreation in the Chugach State Park's Powerline Pass.
Powerline is normally one of the most popular winter playgrounds in the half-million acre park that borders Anchorage's northern edge. Last weekend it was a deserted blast zone. The Weather Service reported winds hit 118 mph in Glen Alps, a subdivision adjacent to the park's Glen Alps Trailhead. You can't stand up in such fierce winds, let alone ski or snowshoe. What one does in a 118 mph wind is crawl, and crawling is not a big winter sport in the 49th state. A 118 mph is a good, strong gust -- 45 mph to be exact -- above winds classified as mere hurricane force.
The incoming weekend wasn't forecast to be as bad as the past weekend in the mountains above the city, but it was shaping up as another weekend to stay in the house. Early winter storms have battered the state. The mega-storm that hit the Bering Sea region in early November was big enough to get the national media chattering about "Arctic hurricanes."
But the winds in that storm were almost tame compared to the gusts that raked the Anchorage Hillside last weekend and had their way with Chugach Park snow. A lot has blown away. Much of the rest is compacted into drifts ranging from rock hard to pillow soft. The latter isn't firm enough to prevent a ski from breaking through and pitching a skier onto her face. The good news for winter recreationists might be that the weather reduces the chance of anyone being killed in an avalanche -- largely because no one ventures out, but also because the warm and windy conditions help stabilize some slopes.
"After the storm last weekend, we had a quick spike in avalanche conditions with numerous natural avalanches," noted Kevin Wright from the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center in Girdwood. "Since then, the temperatures have dropped and generally locked the snowpack in tight."
Of course, what one storms fixes, another can knock asunder. Fresh storms with wind and snow always increase avalanche dangers, and that's what looks to be coming for the state's population center in an around Cook Inlet. The Weather Service posted a blizzard watch for Girdwood, Seward and other points east and south of Anchorage, and a winter storm watch for the Susitna Valley north of the city and west of Wasilla.
Alaskans in those areas were at least welcoming snow. Snow provides a surface for some of Alaska's favorite sports, other than drinking: snowmachining, skiing, dog mushing, snowboarding and fat-tire biking. The suburbs above Anchorage were expected to mainly just get more wind. Homeowners there are still cleaning up from the last blow that ripped into roofs, tore up property and knocked down hundreds of trees.
The hope was the new blow wouldn't be quite as bad as the old blow. Those hoping to get out to stretch their legs or walk the dog on the Hillside over the weekend were being advised to do it early Saturday. The Weather Service said the day would dawn to winds of only 10 to 25 mph, but that they'd pick up to 45 to 60 by afternoon. And after that, well, hang onto something....
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com