Winter Storm — Glacier Bay, Alaska

2024-01-21 to 2024-01-24 · Glacier Bay, Alaska

Event narrative

A trained spotter in Gustavus saw continuous snowfall over the 3 day event and gave regular updates of snow accumulations, including periods of warning level rates (3 inches in 6 hours) during the evening of the 21st, during the daytime on the 22nd, and the afternoon of the 23rd. Her storm total was 22 inches due to compaction. A nearby COOP observer measured a storm total of 26.7 inches of snow from a multi-day snowfall event. The snowfall was heaviest on the 23rd, resulting in a 24 hour measurement of 11.3 inches by the following morning at 5am.

Wider weather episode

A low slowly moving north through the Gulf brought an extended duration snow event to much of the panhandle. Snowfall rates increased across the central panhandle Sunday morning, causing the onset time of the event to begin earlier and resulting in a longer duration snowfall, but warning level rates were confined to the Icy Strait region with greatest amounts in the Juneau area. Dry snow became wetter through the event with southern areas transitioning to rain before seeing significant accumulations. When the change over to rain eventually happened for the Juneau area, larger impacts were seen.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1159096. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.