Saturday night windstorm

[soosh]

( the photos )

The state ferry LeConte had to delay its return to Juneau Sunday
evening and stay in Hoonah over the weekend.

Roger Wetherell of the Alaska Department of Transportation and
Public Facilities explains the vessel was traveling between Juneau and
Angoon Saturday evening when the crew measured sustained winds to
about 70 knots. One gust was measured at 120 knots.

Wetherell says strong winds created drastic sea spray causing
excessive icing to the ship’s radar and GPS and even encased engine
room vents and air intakes.

High winds knocked over about 30 containers at the Alaska Marine
Lines facility at the Rock Dump.

Eric Badger, the company’s port director, says he was notified by
police at about nine Sunday morning.

A damage estimate is pending inspection of the wreckage.

A crane will be moved into the area sometime tomorrow or
Wednesday. Damaged containers will be transported south for repair.

Badger says they’ve had wind incidents in the past, but nothing of
this magnitude. Its only amounted to a couple of containers in past
incidents.

The high wind warning issued for Juneau expired at Noon Sunday.

Meteorologist Kimberly Vaughn says the top gust Sunday morning was
76 miles per hour at South Douglas Island.

It hit 68 miles per hour at the upper terminal of Mt. Roberts, 47
atop the Federal Building, and 49 miles per hour at Mayflower Island.

Winds at the airport were generally around 30 miles hour.

The windy weather sent the wind chill temperatures to between 20
and 25 below.

Windy weather is forecast to keep the wind chill to 20 below zero
today, tonight and Tuesday.

An avalanche was seen coming down Mt. Roberts out Thane Road this morning.

It was located in the beginning of the slide area beyond the Rock Dump.

I was out in this taking photographs saturday night from 10pm-3:30am.
I was on the road system but didn’t see another car for the whole
time. it was clear, but the wind was blowing like hell in some places.
I was on the 40 mile stretch of road north of juneau where there are a
few houses but no services, and I would stop at pullouts, leave the
car running, set up the tripod in the middle of the highway, take a
few photos with the stereo blaring a punk rock show using the song
lengths as a makeshift timer. I could hear the waves crashing down on
the shore below, and the wind was howling, and every once in a while
the wind would bring a mini-blizzard of snow along with it. but
otherwise it was just me in my puffy coat and the tripod and the
negative temperatures and punk rock and the waves and I’d kinda dance
around to keep warm and then get back in the car to drive to the next
place. I tried turning in to this one beach, but there was a bit of a
downhill driveway and it was plowed but at the bottom was a drift that
would have seriously gone over the roofline of the subaru, which would
not have been a Good Thing. I got out of there, and went to the next
turnout, and climbed up the snowbank with my tripod and almost got
blown off by the wind and realized that hey, this was like rescue
situation, so maybe I oughta go ahead and drive home. so I did, at
about 20 miles per hour, because the winds were much more massive than
they had been on the way out the road. it would be clear for a while
and then there would be just zero visibility and it was kind of like
not driving down the highway but more like driving down a blizzardy
driveway.

all in all, a highly enjoyable evening

[staplermofo]

@#$%!

[Mr.BobDobalita]

wow… awesome pics…. sounds like my kind of night! thanks for sharing.

/jealous I don’t live somewhere sweet like that

[jpatten]

WOW love the pictures

[Choc-Ful-A]

Those photos are amazing. The saturation is so intense they look surreal, almost to the point of being artificial/animations. I love them!

[Elsinore]

Those are gorgeous. And better you than me in that kind of cold and wind–I’m not a fan of extreme cold!

[boringolddoug]

An intrepid adventure but the photos are stunning. Thanks for sharing them.

[Lovesandwich]

Unreal photos! Thanks for letting us see them!

[Author]

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