Heavy Snow — Petersburg Borough, Alaska

2026-01-05 · Petersburg Borough, Alaska

Event narrative

Light snow began to fall in the Petersburg area shortly after midnight with rates increasing through the early morning hours of the 5th. Visibility fell to a quarter mile in the 9am hour and a social media comment reported that 6 inches of snow had already fallen by 10am. Snow continued through the day, with some reports of mixing, then rates let up in the evening. A social media report near Scow Bay already had 9.5 inches of snow by 6pm. The COOP station at the Petersburg Airport measured 9.5 inches of new snow at their 10pm report. The airport AWOS saw a change to rain shortly after this measurement.

Wider weather episode

Temperatures cooled across SE Alaska along with outflow winds during the first couple days of January after December's big snow dump. This allowed the next system that moved in from the west on the 4th and 5th to start out as snow. Prefrontal snow showers during the evening of the 4th added to the storm total snow for parts of the northern and central panhandle, then the main system moved in overnight with heavy snow on Monday the 5th (set to be the first day back at school after Winter Break for most locations). The southern panhandle saw a change over to rain during the day on the 5th, then the rain/snow line pushed northward through the night and into the morning of the 6th. Some strong winds accompanied the front, starting out of the north then shifting to the south with the front and causing temperatures to rise.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1315002. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.