Me!!! (glaciercrow) wrote, @ 2011-11-01 20:08:00

In the News - weather and weather...
October drier, windier than average in Juneau
The National Weather Service in Juneau has compiled statistics for October's weather in the Capital City.

Meteorologist Tim Stephen in the Juneau Forecast Office noted some trends over the previous month and he says October was a bit drier than normal but also much windier.

He said temperatures ended up near the norm with a mean monthly temperature of 42.2 degrees, which is just slightly below the average.

He says rainfall was slightly below normal as well, about an inch and a quarter below the average. We had some wintery precipitation in October with ice pellets at the airport on the 19th and we also saw some rain mixed with snow on the last two days of the month, according to Stephen.

Stephen said we had 20 days with winds over 20 mph, eight days with winds over 30 mph and three days with winds over 40 mph. He says the high wind recorded at the airport was 56 mph and that occurred on the 25th of the month.

UPDATE: AEL&P says power restored after wind-related outages
AEL&P says power has been restored across the Capital City, for now.

Utility spokeswoman Deb Ferreira says some 3,600 customers downtown and on Douglas lost power around noon. While crews were working on the lines, another 1,400 customers near Salmon Creek and downtown lost power around 1:35 p.m.

"The crew was able to restore power to all substations approximately 2:10 p.m. today," Ferreira said.

The culprit was no surprise.

"It looks like it was basically wind that caused the tree to fall into line two and it looks like a branch that fell into line one that caused both of those faults," Ferreira said.

The National Weather Service is forecasting gusts up to 55 mph, diminishing early this evening. The winds are expected to be strongest along Gastineau Channel. We asked Ferreira if customers should expect more wind-related outages.

"You know, I'm not sure either, but it's October, so it's definitely par for the course," Ferreira said.