The ongoing rains this summer could cause significant flooding in areas in Southcentral Alaska this weekend, because a cool, wet pattern continues to sweep the region through the next week.
The Weather Service’s Anchorage office has issued an alert for flooding, one step short of a warning, covering the majority of Southcentral starting at 4 p.m. from Friday to Saturday night.
“Flooding caused by heavy rainfall is still possible,” it says.
The forecast predicts peak quantities of up to 2 inches rainfall in mountains to the north of the Turnagain Arm, with 0.7 to 1.5 inches in areas that are populated like areas like the Anchorage Bowl, Matanuska Valley and the western Kenai Peninsula.
NWS meteorologist Michael Kutz said Friday morning that a number of Southcentral weather stations that ranged across Talkeetna to Portage had seen more than a quarter of an inch of rain in the last 24 hours. Koliganek which is located situated on the Alaska Peninsula, had already had almost 2.5 millimeters of rainfall. Then, 2.2 inches reported in Cordova.
Kutz has attributed the magnitude of the rains to the continuous interplay of the high-pressure and low-pressure system that is located over the Pacific Ocean, delivering a almost constant deluge in the region this summer.
“It’s mostly due to the dimensions of this system that it is causing a lot of these systems to curvature and pass across into the Gulf of Alaska and ultimately over us here in Southcentral,” he said.
The mild summer was an advantage for firefighters fighting wildfires across the state however, it’s been far more of a brutal season for peony farmers whose harvests of cash are suffering under the peculiar conditions.
If flooding occurs this weekend, as per Kutz reports, will cause the most harm to smaller creeks that could overwhelm their banks. The consequences could be amplified in the Anchorage’s Campbell as well as Chester creeks, which run through urban areas that are paved and less capable of absorbing floodwaters.
“An one-inch of rainfall, covering an acre, produces more than 27,000 gallons water,” Kutz said. “And we’ve got a amount of land over the plain Anchorage area, which is much smaller than the remainder in Southcentral Alaska.”
Anchorage’s forecast local to Anchorage is calling for rain almost every day through Thursday. However, Kutz added that occasional interruptions in the pattern could provide relief to residents.
“Into Sunday’s forecast, we’ll experience the occasional pause and then we’ll begin building again with the next impulson,” Kutz said. “Basically when you examine the movement from the top to low, what we see is a few tiny ripples in this system.”
