Massive storm blasts Alaska’s Adak Island with 122 mph winds

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Massive storm blasts Alaska’s Adak Island with 122 mph winds

By Scott Sistek
Alaskans are certainly used to taking the worst that Mother Nature can dish out, but she tried her best Saturday evening.

A massive 928 mb (good luck finding that on your barometer) storm churning in the Northern Pacific just off the Aleutian Islands is bringing not just any hurricane-force winds to the region, but what would qualify as Category 3 hurricane force winds had the storm been an actual hurricane.

Adak Island, along the western reaches of the Aleutians, is no stranger to blistering winds, but they recorded a wind gust of 122 mph Saturday evening at 11:36 p.m. PST (9:36 p.m. their time). And this was not just one gust, it was a relentless barrage of triple digit gusts.

Believe it or not, it was dead calm when the day began; the first breeze of the day wasn’t registered until just before 2 a.m.

By 4 a.m. it was gusting to 25 mph, at 5 a.m. it was hitting 52 mph. They touched 69 mph at 8:16 a.m., and from 10:36 a.m. on, gusts wouldn’t drop below 60 any more. 70+ mph gusts were common at lunch (hope you didn’t leave it in the car). Gusts in the 80s popped up during mid-afternoon snack with the first inaugural 100 mph gust hitting at 3:36 p.m.

It was just a teaser — winds would “only” gust in the 80s and 90s through the evening commute, which probably lasts about 3 minutes there depending on if they have a stoplight, and if it’s still lit.

At 6:56 p.m., they hit 104 mph and went on to have 100+ mph gusts for 5 hours and 20 minutes! Their 9:36 p.m. observation was the one that reported a sustained wind of 87 mph, gusting to 122 mph. Even at 7:30 a.m. Sunday they were still gusting to hurricane force levels, making it 18 consecutive hours with gusts at 70 mph or more.

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, and it’s not sourced either, so don’t consider this official) their record gust was 125 mph set in 1954.

(See full list of observations through 9:36 p.m. HST)
Temperatures were in the mid-upper 30s, but if you’re wondering if 122 mph winds would make the wind chill somewhere around minus a billion? No, it’s just 17 degrees — above zero.

Turns out once the winds hit about 40-45 mph, it doesn’t matter how much faster they blow, it feels the same to you. Sure, at 122 mph you have to account for change in temperature due to altitude since you’re probably being blown somewhere over the Bering Sea by now while conducting this experiment, but for the record, NOAA does not factor that in to official Wind Chill calculations.

Going back to the storm’s central pressure of 928 mb, it’s actually not that far off the record low pressure for the region, which was just broken last year at 924 mb.

And if you do want to try to find it on your barometer, you need a really large one. That’s a pressure of 27.40″. Adak didn’t get the direct hit by the storm center and “only” dropped to 27.74″ at the peak but pressure is rising rapidly now that the storm’s front has passed there. To compare, Seattle dropped to 29.39″ with our little wind storm Saturday night.

Weird coincidence

It is somewhat fitting there would be a near record low pressure storm in the Pacific on this date. For Saturday is the 20-year anniversary of Seattle’s lowest pressure on record: 28.65″ during the Dec. 12, 1995 wind storm.

Update: St. George Airport on St. George Island, also in the Aleutians, reported gusts of 108-155(!) mph during a squall. I’m a little leery of those numbers since there was freezing fog in the area and much like we saw with the wildfires in Eastern Washington when Omak was reporting crazy high winds, the gagues can get gummed up. If it’s accurate, WOW!, but the wind measurements stopped for a period then returned with gusts in the 30s, perhaps someone cleaned the gauge.

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Massive storm blasts Alaska’s Adak Island with 122 mph winds