NWS Juneau: Strong End of Week System | October 15th, 2026

All right, good afternoon Southeast Alaska. My name is Nick Morgan. I'm a lead meteorologist here at the National Weather Service here in Juneau, Alaska. It's around 1:00, 1:15 in the afternoon on October 15th, 2026. Just wanted to hop on here and provide you guys a quick weather update.

It's been pretty active the last 24 hours and expecting that to really continue over the next 24 hours as well. A couple of messages. Not a lot of things have changed since we talked yesterday. A big thing is heavy rainfall still expected through Friday morning. You can see we have this nice low pressure system just south of the Alaska Peninsula sending up this nice plume of moisture straight into the Southeast Panhandle.

That is expected to continue over the next 24 hours. Definitely going to see some rain rates exceeding about 0.3 inches per hour, and we'll get a little bit more into that here in just a little bit. Another thing, we're seeing sustained winds around 25 35 to 40 miles per hour with gusts of 50 widespread across the Panhandle. That's been occurring since around 8 o'clock this morning. That's likely going to continue as we get into the evening period and then gradually trend off for the north.

But however, the southern Panhandle will likely see some strong winds continuing into the overnight period into Friday. And as such, we have issued a high wind warning for Ketchikan and Annette Island through Friday morning with wind gusts up 60 miles per hour expected, potentially some wind gusts up to 70, uh, at elevations around 1,000 feet, 500 feet or less. And still messaging the possibility of isolated landslides in the southern Panhandle in that combination of moderate to heavy rainfall and those 40 to 60 mile per hour wind gusts. Historically speaking, that is something we like to keep an eye on. So still messaging, you know, isolated landslides are possible in the southern Panhandle.

So let's kick off with wind. Uh, we talked about it, we do have some wind advisories out for the Juneau area, Baranof, and Sitka as well. Winds are going to gradually decrease over the next few hours as we get into the evening time frame. Still see some sustained winds around 20 to 30 miles per hour, some gusts up to 40. Still probably be pretty gusty as we get into the evening period, probably some gusts into the 30s, but should be on the general downtrend for the Juneau Sitka area as we get into the evening period.

We briefly talked about it as well, we have upgraded the wind advisories and now have high wind warnings issued for the Annette Island and Ketchikan Gateway Borough area. That is in effect now until Friday at 7 o'clock in the morning. So we're going to see some sustained winds 25 to 35 miles per hour with those southeasterly gusts reaching potentially 60. And like we just talked about, you could see some gusts up to 70, 75 miles per hour at elevations greater than 500 feet.

And then also continuing on a little bit further north, uh, for Prince of Wales, Wrangell, Petersburg, western Cooper Knopf, and Cooey, we're still thinking that, you know, we will see some gusty winds continuing overnight through Friday morning, uh, sustained winds around 20 to 30 miles per hour with some gusts up to 45. So not as strong as the Ketchikan and that areas. However, Still expecting a good secondary surge of winds to start pushing towards you guys after midnight, arriving around 3 o'clock in the morning and continuing through Friday morning.

And not to be left out, as this secondary front that's going to push through overnight into Friday morning, we have issued a wind advisory for Skagway on the tail end of things. So by 4 AM on Friday, Skagway winds will start to be increasing, and that's going to continue through much of Friday. Uh, we'll start to see sustained winds around 20 to 30 miles per hour with some gusts up to 45, uh, continuing through much of the day.

So we've talked about wind, now let's talk about some of the rain hazards we might see. We still have a flood watch across majority of the southern Panhandle in effect through Friday afternoon. Flooding caused by excessive rainfall is possible. We're seeing some areas you know, near Ketchikan and Annette Island potentially seeing up to 4 to 6 inches of rainfall over the next 24 hours or so. So would likely see some level of river rise or river response, already starting to see some.

So would not be surprised if we see some levels across— or excuse me, some river levels in the flood watch reach minor flood stage as we get into the overnight period and start to see some moderate to heavy rainfall coming back into the area with this secondary system. And speaking of it, let's take a kind of a look at the timing. This is broken down by 6-hour precipitation, just some model guidance that helps us kind of identify where we might think the heaviest rain might be. And as you can tell by the highlighted colors, Ketchikan and the Petersburg area seem to be the winner, uh, through the next, you know, 12 hours. We'll likely see, you know, 3 inches according to this guidance, potentially a little bit higher at the elevations, but the The thing to look at as well is as we get into, you know, 10 AM Friday to 4 PM Friday, you really start to see that decrease and diminish in, you know, uh, rainfall amounts.

So we will start to see that gradual diminishing trend as we get through Friday afternoon, as this front pushes out of the area. It's not necessarily a drying trend, but not necessarily moderate to heavy rain. We kind of transition to a more of a showery hit-or-miss regime.

And just, uh, hit back home again, like we had talked about, we, with this combination of moderate to heavy rain and these elevated winds, historically speaking, these do meet conditions for possible isolated landslides for those areas that are under the flood watch. And just as a reminder, here's the areas with the flood watch, uh, essentially much of the southern panhandle. So Rainfall rates will exceed 0.3 inches per hour under the flood watch with those gusty winds. So just something to keep an eye on and pay attention for as we get Thursday night into Friday morning as that secondary surge of rain hits, you know, after midnight through around 6 in the morning is what I would estimate.

And that's really all that I have the update for you. So in summary, it's going to be wet, it's going to be windy, and that's going to continue through Friday morning. However, as we get into Friday afternoon into Saturday, we'll start to see some bit of a break potentially. However, we are keeping our eye on another system that could potentially move into the Panhandle by early next week, and we'll keep you updated on the latest for that. If you'd like to find updates to the forecast, you can go as always to weather.gov/juneau.

If you'd like to get a little more in-depth dive as to what the forecast thinking is or what our thoughts are, we write a forecast discussion every single day updated on our website. Multiple times a day. You can find that at that first link, or if you have a question, you're going to be heading out and you'd like the latest forecast from us, you can give us a call right there on the screen, 907-790-6824. We're here 24/7, 365, and we would love to hear from the public and help you get where you need to be. Like I said, my name is Nick Morgan.

I'm a lead meteorologist here with the National Weather Service here in Juneau. Thank you and have a great day.