High Wind — City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska

2025-09-17 · City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska

Event narrative

The public reported hearing a loud, thunder-like, sound around 7am AKDT Wednesday near downtown Juneau and Douglas, which was later determined to be a stack of shipping containers being blown over at the AML dock. At 813am the power company reported an outage north of town and the public reported trees down in the same area. Within the next hour, siding was reported blown off an apartment building and a large wooden playset blown over in the Mendenhall Valley. At 1122am AKDT, a very strong gust caused an area-wide power outage. Within the 11am hour, elevation sites around Juneau peaked at 78-85mph. The peak gust recorded at the Juneau Airport ASOS during this event was 53mph at 122pm AKDT.

Wider weather episode

A storm force low developed and pushed into the eastern Gulf of Alaska the evening of Tuesday 9/16/2025 through Wednesday 9/17/2025, bringing widespread strong to high winds to the panhandle. Winds surged northward through the inner channels as the low center tracked closer to the coast and jumped inland. The Juneau Airport Wind System (JAWS) was lit up all day due to wind shear and flights were cancelled. Cruise ships via the USCG changed plans and stayed the night in ports before onset of winds and missed their next 1 or 2 ports of call. There were numerous reports of localized damage to siding and roofs.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1295669. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.