Alaska's Aleutian Islands Experience
Intense Bering Sea Storm
Portions of Alaska's
Aleutian Islands experienced near-hurricane level winds from remnants of
Typhoon Nuri Friday.
On
Shemya Island, 120 people barricaded themselves indoors to avoid the storm,
which reached sustained winds of 70 mph and gusts up to 96 mph as recorded
Friday morning.
(FORECAST: Intense Storm Swirling In Bering Sea)
The
island is home to the U.S. military's Eareckson Air Station, which serves
mainly as an early warning radar installation. Acting manager Don Llewellyn
said no one was going outside, but people can see light poles waving.
But
toward evening, the winds had eased enough to allow personnel to get outside
and check for any storm damage, said Tommie Baker, public affairs officer for
the Alaskan Command.
"A
couple of the buildings had some minor damage, but there were no
injuries," he said. "They are going to let it pass through a little
bit more and (then) go out and do a full island assessment."
He
estimated that by 5 p.m. Friday, sustained winds had dropped to 45-65 mph with
gusts of 80 mph.
The
brunt of the storm is expected to pass into the Bering Sea and lose strength,
but forecasters warned it will still push unseasonably frigid air into much of
the U.S. next week.
"It's
going to slowly weaken all the way through Sunday," National Weather
Service meteorologist Jason Ahsenmacher said. "It's going to be a very
slow process."
Forecasters
said waves could be as high as 50 feet, prompting ships and fishing vessels to
get out of the storm's path or seek protected harbors.
Ahsenmacher
said late Friday night that he hasn't heard of any problems regarding shipping.
"Most
mariners know about this storm and they are trying to stay away," he said.
The
storm was expected to surpass the intensity of 2012's Superstorm Sandy and has
the potential to be one of the most intensive to ever hit the North Pacific,
meteorologists said. But while Sandy was blamed for at least 182 deaths and $65
billion in damage on the East Coast, Nuri's target is a sparsely populated
region with just a few small communities where people are accustomed to severe
weather.
Friday's
high temperature was in the mid-40s in Shemya, which is in a sub-polar region
that doesn't get the same bitter cold as Alaska's interior. But the island
1,500 miles southwest of Anchorage gets plenty of extreme weather, including
100-mile winds. The community averages six weather-related lockdowns a year,
Llewellyn said.
"This
is nothing new to us," he told The Associated Press in a telephone
interview. "This one's a little bit more intense, but it's something that
we're prepared to deal with."
The
system is expected to freeze much of the lower 48 states next week, forecaster
Bruce Sullivan said. Snow also is coming to areas including the northern
Rockies and northern Plains.
In
Great Falls, Montana, the high temperature is predicted to be 17 degrees
Tuesday, compared with the normal high of 43, Sullivan said. The forecast for
Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a high of 25, which is about 20 degrees below
normal. High temperatures in Minneapolis will only reach the upper 20s.
Amid
prospects that the storm could dip into the upper Midwest, National Weather
Service meteorologist Gino Izzi in Chicago offered a warning to that region's
populace: Winter is about to hit, sooner there than usual.
Izzi
said highs there are expected to settle into the 30s from Tuesday through
Friday, while nightly lows could drop into the 20s, perhaps even the teens.
"It
doesn't look real promising for a warmup after that, either," he said of
the longer-range forecast that meteorologists hadn't sorted out by Friday.
In
Sioux Falls, weather service meteorological technician Tim Masters said
temperatures will be colder than average but won't break any records.
"We've
been above normal most of the fall, so this is our first shot going the other
way being below normal," he said. "Basically, this is a wakeup call
that this is November and it can get pretty cold this time of year. Hopefully
we don't stay that cold very long."
In
the Aleutians, the storm's path includes a busy maritime route for cargo ships
traveling between the U.S. and Asia, as well as the red king crab fishery made
famous by the Discovery Channel reality show "Deadliest Catch."
Mariners were finding protected harbors or moving away from the path, according
to Brett Farrell with the nonprofit Marine Exchange of Alaska. No one in their
right mind would stick around that area, he said.
Officials
are also closely watching the western coast of Alaska's mainland, according to
Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the state Department of Homeland Security and
Emergency Management. Fall storms routinely batter many coastal communities,
and erosion has long been a problem.
http://www.weather.com/news/news/alaska-aleutian-islands-bering-sea-storm-20141108
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