williwaw.com

Alaska is a big place, and the weather system affecting our state right now is even bigger, but I’m going to show you that is it the small scale that counts when it comes to winds of the south and southeast coasts. As I write this, virtually the whole state is under the influence of the strong pressure gradient between a large, deep low in the Northeast Pacific and strong but gradually weakening high pressure in Siberia and the Alaska interior. (The high was up to a crushing 1060 mb a few days ago, compared to the still hefty 1040 mb on this map) Here is the surface map from 3 pm/00z this afternoon from the GFS model (It’s the 12 hr forecast which is about as good as an analysis):

You probably know that where the isobars are drawn with the closest spacing is where the gradient is the strongest and therefore where the wind is supposed to be the strongest. (more…)