Debris Flow — Juneau Borough, Alaska

2022-09-26 to 2022-09-27 · near Douglas, Juneau Borough, Alaska

Event narrative

AKDOT respond to a small shallow landslide around mile marker 31 along Glacier Highway which closed the highway for a period of time. The slide was reported around 1700AKST which was was the front went through the area and there was very high rain rates of over 0.50 in 3 hours after more than 2 in the previous 24 hours. The heavy rain persisted overnight and another small slide came down very close to the location of the first one the previous day. AKDOT was able to clear the material in a few hours to have the road back open.

Wider weather episode

An atmospheric river moved out of the north Pacific into the Gulf of Alaska September 25th and started to impact the northern half of the Southeast Alaska's panhandle. This event brought in very high amounts of moisture, winds and very warm temps through September 27th. These warm temps rose the freezing levels to be above 9 thousand feet to increase the amount of melt from glacier in headwaters of the Taiya River. Rain amounts from this event ranged from 3 to 5 inches in 36 hours. The heavy rain and high freezing levels produced significant amounts of runoff to cause moderate flood along the Taiya River near Skagway in Dyea and around the Jordan Creek area near Juneau from mid morning on September 26th through the morning of September 27th.

As the front moved through the area there was a wind shift in the afternoon hours of September 26th and with the ground very wet from the heavy rain caused a tree to fall which triggered a shallow landslide in downtown Juneau to damaged 3 homes. The heavy rain also triggered a landslide near mile marker 26 along the Haines Highway Monday afternoon and 2 near mile marker 31 along Glacier Highway in Juneau one around 1700AKST and then again in the early morning of September 27th.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (58.5297, -134.8211)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1058929. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.