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FXAK67 PAJK 040625 AAA
AFDAJK

Southeast Alaska Forecast Discussion...UPDATED
National Weather Service Juneau AK
1025 PM AKDT Thu Jul 3 2025

...Evening Update and 06z Aviation Discussion...
Forecast remains largely on track with minor adjustments to wind
directions across the southern panhandle and decreasing forecast
wind gusts through tonight. Through tonight, anticipating
generally dry conditions to continue under overcast skies across
the panhandle as ridging moves in aloft, with overnight
temperatures in the low 50s to upper 40s. Dry conditions continue
for Friday the 4th, with decreasing cloud cover through the
afternoon and high temperatures climbing into the 60s.

&&

.SHORT TERM...
Short term forecast heading into the holiday weekend remains on
track with low cloud cover starting to thin out over the southern
and central panhandle through this afternoon but still hang on
along the Icy Strait corridor. Weak anticyclonic flow can be seen
in satellite imagery of cumulus clouds that have popped up at
higher elevations along Baranof Island and Admiralty Island,
essentially filling the void left by the dissipating stratus layer
in those areas. The best chance for continued clearing skies will
be over the inner channels, as drier air aloft tries to make take
center stage. Overnight Thursday into Friday most areas in the
central panhandle will still have enough moisture in the low
levels to see fog development, as winds remain relatively light
and variable and afternoon cumulus cloud cover diminishes.

For the 4th of July holiday, cloud cover looks to diminish
further across a majority of the panhandle as the ridge continues
to push in with even lower chances for any afternoon showers to
produce measurable precipitation. The lone exception will be
Skagway and the Klondike Highway as chances have increased for
convective showers from a trough moving down from the Yukon to
make their way over the town Friday evening. Coming from the
interior though, these showers will have fairly high cloud decks,
and depending on the stage of their development, could end up
having little rain actually making it to the surface.

.LONG TERM...
Key messages:
- A drier trend is expected this weekend with times of light
  showers still expected.
- Temperatures slightly increase into the weekend.
- Weak trough to skirt the far southern panhandle Saturday
- The next low pressure system enters the gulf at the start of
  next week.
- Unseasonable heavy rain for far southern panhandle Monday into
  Tuesday.

Details: Precipitation chances diminish into the weekend as an
area of weak surface high pressure remains over the eastern Gulf
of Alaska. Even with diminishing precipitation chances, that does
not mean that the panhandle will remain completely dry. Isolated
showers remain possible across the panhandle in the afternoon
hours. However, minimum QPF is expected with no impacts. Along
with light showers, an upper level trough will continue to bring
increased cloud cover with broken to overcast skies. Temperatures
at the end of the week begin to return to near typical values for
this time of year with maximum temperatures in the mid to high
60s. Low temperatures will remain in the low to mid 50s to end out
the week.

Toward the end of the weekend, a low will slide into the
northwest gulf and a trough extending from it will bring a shift
to more southerly flow over the panhandle and increasing
precipitation rates. The heaviest precipitation currently looks to
be more focused on the northern panhandle than the central and
southern areas for Sunday. Another system will move into the
southern gulf early next week bringing widespread moderate to
heavy rain. Some model discrepancies still exist with the
placement of this feature, however models continue to trend
towards winds increasing along the eastern gulf to fresh to strong
breezes by Tuesday. Ensemble trends have begun to show a signal
for heavy rain with this early week system impacting the far
southern panhandle from a . The EFI has trended towards increasing
SoT near 2 for QPF for the far southern panhandle, with more than
80% members, for the 24 hr period from Monday afternoon through
Tuesday afternoon. The track of the plume of moisture responsible
for producing this heavy rain will be the primary forecast
challenge heading into the next work week. With continued model
spread for this low pressure system just under a week away, we
will continue to monitor it`s development.

&&

.AVIATION...
VFR flight conditions across the panhandle this evening with CIGs
AoA 3500ft and P6SM as ridging moves in aloft and isolated
showers come to an end. Through tonight, anticipating predominate
VFR to MVFR flight conditions to prevail with CIGS AoA 1500ft with
potential for IFR CIGS/Visbys development by 10z through 16z
Friday. Winds will continue to decrease through tonight across the
panhandle, going near calm and variable by 10z, increasing once
more by 18z to 5 to 10kts. Strongest winds remain in Skagway
through Friday afternoon, sustained up to 15kts with isolated
gusts up to 25kts. VFR conditions prevail across the panhandle by
22z Friday to 00z Saturday through the rest of the period. No LLWS
concerns through the period.

&&

.MARINE...
Inside Waters: Generally low winds of 10 kt or less for most
areas this afternoon. The only exception to that is in Taiya
Inlet, but it is not much higher, only blowing 15 kt out of the
south there. These lower wind conditions are expected to continue
for the next few days with some possible localized increases to 15
to 20 kt or so in the afternoons and evenings due to sea breeze
circulations. Waves will also be rather low with mainly 3 ft or
less wind wave through the weekend and little contribution from
swell near ocean entrances. Next more intense storm is more toward
Monday night into Tuesday with 15 to 25 kt winds possible for
mainly the southern inner channels.

.Outside Waters: Highest winds of 15 to 20 kt remain stationed in
the central gulf this afternoon. While seas remain rather low
with the highest being 4 ft seas for the near shore waters and 6
ft in the central gulf. There is also a small SW swell of 3 ft at
9 sec observed as well. This pattern is not going to change all
that much through the early weekend. It is into Sunday and early
next week that we start to see some changes. First the trough over
the central and southern gulf will drift north on Sunday to bring
some 15 to 20 kt SE winds and seas to 5 ft to the northern near
shore waters. That is followed by a stronger system on Monday
night into Tuesday that will bring 20 to 30 kt winds and seas up
to 8 ft for the SE gulf. Most of those seas will be wind wave as
the southerly swell will still only be around 2 to 3 ft through
the period.

&&

.AJK WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
PUBLIC...None.
MARINE...None.

&&

$$

UPDATE...NM
SHORT TERM...STJ
LONG TERM....STJ
AVIATION...NM
MARINE...EAL

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