Champi's remnants track south, but Hooper Bay could see water 2 to 4 feet above high tide

The National Weather Service on Wednesday downgraded a coastal flood watch for Hooper Bay to an advisory after the forecast track for the remnants of Typhoon Champi moved farther south.

The storm is now forecast to head toward Bristol Bay on Thursday and Friday, about 200 miles south of Nunivak Island. That "will significantly weaken all expected coastal impacts" from Hooper Bay north, the weather service's Fairbanks office wrote. Forecasters had been watching for tropical remnants since last week, the fifth in a string of storms headed for western Alaska.

Hooper Bay could still see water 2 to 4 feet above the normal high tide with Thursday's and Friday's high tides, under an advisory that runs from 7 am Thursday to 1 am Saturday. Beach property, the lowest buildings and the access road could be threatened, and repeated high tides could cause localized beach erosion, forecasters said.

Most of the Yukon Delta and Norton Sound coasts should see water 1 to 3 feet above the normal high tide line.

Around Nome, forecasters are watching rivers and streams. Streams between Nome and Council are already high after weekend rain, and forecasters expect 1 to 3 more inches of precipitation by the end of the week. They don't expect flooding, but ice in culverts could back up streams and push water over roads, the weather service said.

That corridor includes the Nome-Council Highway, where permanent repairs began this fall on stretches ex-Typhoon Merbok tore up in 2022.

Two more storms are expected in the southern Bering Sea early next week. Most forecast models keep them well south of Nunivak Island, but enough show northerly tracks that the storms "cannot be dismissed," forecasters wrote.