334
FXAK67 PAJK 022245
AFDAJK

Southeast Alaska Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Juneau AK
245 PM AKDT Wed Jul 2 2025

.SHORT TERM...The vertically stacked low of yesterday is slowly
devolving into an open wave trough over the southern panhandle
today. Satellite imagery denotes a fairly distinct boundary
between this feature producing convective showers over Clarence
and Sumner Straits and lower stratiform clouds over northern
Chatham Strait sand northward through Icy Strait and up Lynn
Canal. Showers in the southern panhandle will continue to diminish
through Wednesday night, while for the northern panhandle, the
low level stratiform clouds will continue to be seeded from above
by moisture streaming from Canada through the evening hours.
Precipitation totals are expected to still be light, continuing
the trend from site observations through the day. With a few pokes
of sunshine breaking through in the south, some areas managed to
just reach 60 degrees this afternoon, while the central and
northern panhandle will likely fail due to persistent showers and
cloud cover. However, this blanket will also limit any significant
overnight cooling with low temperatures once more around 50
degrees. With light winds and plenty of moisture in the boundary
layer, patchy fog may still develop in more sheltered parts of the
panhandle overnight Wednesday. The far southern panhandle will
likely see more breaks in the clouds develop through tonight into
Thursday as it dodges the northeasterly flow from the interior.
This will allow for some warmer temperatures and potential for sea
breezes again in the southern panhandle Thursday.

A weak surface ridge will continue to push its way into the
panhandle Wednesday night into Thursday, with winds expected to
diminish as the trough over the southern panhandle finally gives
up the ghost. Winds for the most part are expected to remain low
for the next few days with the highest winds mainly from sea
breeze circulations during the afternoons and evenings. For more
information on the winds over the Gulf and Inner Channels heading
towards the holiday weekend, check the Marine discussion below.

.LONG TERM...Key messages:
- A drier trend is expected this weekend with times of light showers
  still expected.
- Temperatures slightly increase to the end of the week into the
  weekend.
- The next low pressure system enters the gulf at the start of next
  week.

Details: Precipitation chances diminish into the weekend as an area
of weak 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 light to moderate
showers will remain possible across the panhandle in the afternoon
hours. 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. Winds will mostly remain low into the weekend with the
exception of and sea breezes that develop.

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.
With continued model spread for this low pressure system just
under a week away, we will continue to monitor it`s development.

&&

.AVIATION...Yesterday`s weak surface low pressure centered just
northeast of Sitka has become a broad trough across the central
Alaska Panhandle today. To the south of this boundary we see
breaks in the clouds with generally MVFR to VFR being noted across
the southern half of the Panhandle. To the north, with the
exception of the outer coastal areas (Sitka and Yakutat) and
Skagway, IFR to MVFR being noted for Juneau, Haines and Gustavus
were low ceiling between 800 to 1500 ft AGL are being noted. We
generally expect this trend to continue into the evening hours
with spotty areas of rain north and isolated showers down south.
We still expect to see CIGS lower late tonight again for many
areas in the central Panhandle except the outer coast. with early
to mid morning IFR concerns being primarily Juneau and Haines.

&&

.MARINE...Inside Waters: Lynn Canal, Cross Sound, and near Cape
Decision are the spots with the most wind this afternoon though
even at these locations the highest is only 20 kt with mostly
southerly or westerly winds. These winds are expected to diminish
overnight with some areas like Stephens Passage, and Northern
Chatham possibly even turning a light north late. Over the next
few days, lighter winds will mainly be the rule with generally 15
kt of wind or less expected. Some areas of higher winds up to 20
kt could develop during the afternoons and evenings if strong sea
breezes happen to develop, but that will mainly be in the northern
inner channels. Seas are mainly 3 ft or less wind wave with
little if any contribution at ocean entrances from incoming swell
and that is expected to continue to be the case for the next few
days.

Outside Waters: Gulf waters weather is rather calm with mostly W
winds to 15 kt for the near coastal waters switching to SE for the
central gulf. Seas are very calm with most buoys reporting
combined seas of 2 ft this afternoon. most of that is from a
southerly swell of 2 ft with a period of about 13 seconds.
Relatively calm conditions are expected to continue as most near
shore winds become light overnight. The exception is the southern
gulf where E to SE winds will be increasing to 15 to 20 kt into
Thursday lasting into early Saturday as a weaker low swings by to
the south. Seas are expected to increase because of these higher
winds in the south, but the highest expected are around 5 ft for
the southern near shore waters and 7 ft in the central gulf. Most
of this will be wind wave while a 2 to 3 ft SW swell at around 13
to 16 sec will persist.

&&

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

&&

$$

SHORT TERM...STJ
LONG TERM....EAB/STJ
AVIATION...JG
MARINE...EAL

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