Flood — Taiya Inlet, Alaska

2014-09-21 to 2014-09-22 · near Skagway, Taiya Inlet, Alaska

Event narrative

Moderate rain began to fall over the Taiya River basin in the early morning hours of September 21st. The moderate rain continued through the early evening hours and by the time the rain stopped the Skagway airport received record rainfall for that day with one point fourteen inches. In the headwaters...the Sheep Camp weather station reported one point twenty one inches on the 21st and the warm front also pushed air temperature above fifty degrees to increase the ice melt from glacier input. The Taiya River began to rise rapidly in the mid morning of Sunday the 21st and continue to climb through the evening hours and crested at seventeen point zero six feet just above moderate flood stage of seventeen feet in the early hours on the 22nd. The river level slowly fell through Monday as the moderate rain pushed to the east as the low pressure system drifted into Canada. There were reports of moderate flood along the lower portions of the Chillkoot trail in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park with waist to thigh deep water in places.

Wider weather episode

A strong and moist low developed along a stationary front over the north Pacific and moved north into the eastern gulf of Alaska through Sunday September 21. The low deepened to 984mb by Sunday afternoon and it had tropical moisture associated with it with very high precipitable water values of over one inch. The warm front produced some high 24 hour rainfall values in the Taiya River basin and surrounds areas with a few daily rainfall records. The moderate rain along with ice melt runoff produced moderate flooding on the Taiya River and along the Chillkoot trail from Sunday afternoon through early Monday morning on September 22.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (59.6959, -135.2602)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 543735. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.