During a fly-in hunt east of Delta Jct this September, I experienced some baffling weather that I understand is NOT that uncommon there. Yet in all my years of living in the Midwest and also the Rockies, I've never seen quite like it.

Over a perior of about 5 days is was blue sky clear (maybe with a few high stratus clouds), but the wind blew hard almost constantly; usually between 15-20 mph but a 2 days we had many many 40-50 mph gusts.

In the midwest this is a sign of a squall or a storm front just passing through. In the Rockies it'd be a T-storm and short lived.

Can anyone explain this? - EB

Pretty common in my backyard--SE Colorado. In fact, 4 days in a row last week it did exactly what you described.

More geographical than meterological... I was stationed in Idaho for 5 years... we could get winds like that for days... Like Chicago. In Birmingham Al, or Syracuse NY... not so much.

It's often very windy around Delta Junction, perhaps because the Alaska Range is not too far away. The same thing happens around Denali. In fact, when your drive the Parks Highway and approach Denali, it's extremely windy, even on beautiful and clear days.

You can always count on the wind blowing in delta no matter what the sky looks like

What many folks don't grasp is that Alaska is a huge land mass. Winds blow from high pressure to low and temperatures affect winds even though there may be no apparent high or low pressure fronts. During the summer the interior gets plenty of sunshine, warmer temps and lower pressure compared to the coastal areas, both North and South. pressure tends to build up against the mountain ranges and then rush through passes or finally over the tops.
In the winter things reverse. My homestead on the Alaskan Peninsula gets winds over 100 mph on a regular basis even during perfectly clear days due to the cold, heavy interior air rushing toward the warm, moist coastal area.
Delta, like my homestead, also is in a wind funnel which tends to speed thing up.

Hang around Alaska long enough and you'll see lots of different weather patterns, and especially with the wind......60-70mph winds back east are "hurricane force;" up here it's just another windy day. The wind is always blowing somewhere in Alaska now-a-days, what with all the hot air coming out of Juneau.......

Joe

quote:

Can anyone explain this? - EB

It's quite simple:

Russia sucks and Canada blows!



MM

I have a collegue who is a Meteorologist in charge of the Meteorology Team at the Cold Region Test Center (located in and around Delta Junction. Basicly, 458 WIN has is right in his post. To quote:

"What many folks don't grasp is that Alaska is a huge land mass. Winds blow from high pressure to low and temperatures affect winds even though there may be no apparent high or low pressure fronts. During the summer the interior gets plenty of sunshine, warmer temps and lower pressure compared to the coastal areas, both North and South. pressure tends to build up against the mountain ranges and then rush through passes or finally over the tops.
In the winter things reverse. My homestead on the Alaskan Peninsula gets winds over 100 mph on a regular basis even during perfectly clear days due to the cold, heavy interior air rushing toward the warm, moist coastal area.
Delta, like my homestead, also is in a wind funnel which tends to speed thing up."

As I layed there in the tent at night and wondered if we needed to "flatten" the ten to save the remaining tent poles, I suspected it was what we saw in Idaho with hi/low pressure systems squeezing between and over mountain ranges.

Thanks! - EB

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