041
FXAK68 PAFC 041350
AFDAFC

Southcentral and Southwest Alaska Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Anchorage AK
450 AM AKST Tue Nov 4 2025

.SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHCENTRAL ALASKA (Days 1 through 3: Today
through Thursday)...

The upper level trough that extends from Norton Sound
southeastward over the southern Kenai Peninsula and into the Gulf
remains the main weather feature for today and tomorrow across
Southcentral. The current position of this trough can be seen on
GOES-18 satellite imagery stretching from near Homer and
northwestward early this morning. This is bringing in generally
disorganized snow showers to the north and east of the trough. For
the past two days, models keep trying to find a stronger wave to
develop more organized showers which has largely just meant that
each model and successive model run has different track and
timing for their solutions. Other than the main trough axis, the
only discernible weak wave that can be seen on satellite early
this morning is over the northeastern portion of Prince William
Sound and stretching toward the Talkeetna Mountains. This pattern
which has been around for the past few days will be changing as a
stronger low (currently centered near 50N 143W) moves into the
southeastern Gulf on Wednesday with a leading inverted trough
producing gale-forece winds into the central Gulf. This change in
pattern looks likely to bring clearing skies for the Kenai
Peninsula, Anchorage and the Mat-Su region Wednesday before
getting cloudy again by Wednesday night. Farther east, the new
trough will bring in rain to eastern Prince William Sound with
snow in the southern Copper River Basin.

&&


.SHORT TERM FORECAST SOUTHWEST ALASKA/BERING SEA/ALEUTIANS
(Days 1 through 3: Today through Thursday)...

An upper level trough axis continues to slowly drift across
Southwest this morning, still moving slowly but steadily east. A
band of snow along a deformation axis out ahead of the trough has
also progressed northeast compared to yesterday, now pushing
closer to the western Alaska Range near Lime Village. West of the
trough, dry conditions have returned to most of Bristol Bay and
the Kuskokwim Delta. Low stratus and areas of dense fog have
formed across much of the Kuskokwim Delta as stagnant air and
otherwise clear skies have allowed the surface to radiate out
overnight. In fact, the Bethel observed sounding from this morning
shows a very shallow and extremely sharp temperature inversion
from the surface to about 500 ft, with areas of dense fog
evidently trapped in this very stable, saturated layer. Out west,
a gale force low is entering the western Bering Sea, with the main
surface center now skirting to the north of the central
Aleutians. The strongest winds have moved in on the southern side
of this low, mainly over and around the western Aleutians.
Observed winds with this system have looked a little less
impressive compared to some earlier signals, and the wind forecast
has accordingly been nudged down from Storm force to high-end
gale force across the southwest corner of the Bering Sea for
today.

In terms of the outlook beyond this morning, the forecast is
looking very on track with little change to the short term
outlook. The Bering low will begin to slide southeast through this
evening, crossing from the Bering to Pacific side west of Nikolski
later this evening. As it does so, the corridor of trailing
westerly gales will spread east into the central Aleutians through
tonight. On Wednesday the low will continue to make an exit south
into the North Pacific, allowing winds to rapidly drop off and
turn more northerly along the Aleutian Chain and much of the
eastern Bering/AKPen regions. Steady rain or rain-snow mix will
give way to scattered showers along the Aleutians from Wednesday
to Thursday as a narrow ridge axis builds back into the center of
the Bering. Meanwhile, a weak front associated with a Kamchatka
low will send another round of mostly rain showers and westerly
winds up to 25 kts into the western Bering and Aleutians on
Thursday.

Across Southwest, the outlook remains a good bit calmer, with any
precipitation chances staying on the lighter side for the next few
days. The best chance for another round of light snow will be out
ahead of an upper level low currently centered near Norton Sound
that will wobble south into the Kuskokwim Delta and then over
Bristol Bay between Wednesday and Thursday. Moisture closer to
the surface near this system looks to stay fairly limited, but
there may be just enough to support areas of light snow moving
into mainly southern portions of the Kuskokwim Delta as the low
brushes past, especially over the Kuskokwim Mountains where
increasing northerly flow begins to upslope into higher terrain
through Thursday. Northerly winds will also increase markedly as
a tight northwest to southeast pressure gradient sets up between a
strong low moving into the Gulf and the ridge axis out in the
central Bering. The strongest winds will develop towards the
Alaska Peninsula, where winds will be aided by both gap
enhancement and cold advection. Gusts of 40 to 50 mph or higher
will be likely along and south of the AKPen as the stronger winds
materialize in earnest during the day on Thursday.

-AS

&&

.LONG TERM FORECAST (Days 4 through 7: Friday through Monday)...

Slight change from previous discussion... A fairly stagnant
weather pattern continues for the long term forecast period as a
blocking upper level ridge over Canada keeps the mean trough axis
over western mainland Alaska. Temperatures will gradually cool
with northerly flow aloft, especially over Southwest Alaska.
Surface lows in the Gulf of Alaska will bring in rounds of
precipitation to Southcentral, but the majority of accumulation
will stay coastal. Gap winds on the backside of the Gulf lows will
increase through the Alaska Peninsula Thursday and Friday while
the rest of Southwest stays relatively quiet.

There are signals of a strong low pressure system sweeping a
front across the Western and Central Aleutians over the weekend
and into early next week. Enhanced rain and gale to storm force
wind gusts are possible as the front moves over the region, but
the exact storm track as it moves east is uncertain at this time.
This is something we will continue to keep an eye on going as the
week progresses.


&&

.AVIATION...

PANC...Mostly VFR conditions with light winds are expected. A weak
shortwave moving overhead today may produce some light snow showers
and temporary MVFR conditions, but it looks less likely that there
will be anything but VFR even with a few snow showers around.

&&


$$