New Year's Day brings time to mitigate property and catch up on plowing, weather service and CBJ states; DOT continues monitoring avalanche risk

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau Independent

A break from the snow is finally expected, announced Nicole Ferrin, a warning coordination meteorologist for National Weather Service Juneau during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.

"We've got a little bit of snow falling out the window right now, but we're really only expecting maybe up to two inches or so through tonight," she said. "In fact, it should just be tapering off this evening, and we have been going back and forth between some mix and snow today, and other parts of the Panhandle are still under winter storm warnings."

Ferrin said starting on New Year's Day, there will be a break in the weather until Monday. She said there may be flurries around Friday night and Saturday morning, but the weather service is not expecting significant accumulations. The temperature will drop each day.

"We are looking at a potential system (to) come in during the day on Monday, but exactly what time on Monday that comes in and if it's going to be rain versus snow, we're studying that a lot, but it is six days out from right now, so there's a lot of uncertainty that far out, and we'll be monitoring it really closely," she said.

One thing Ferrin was sure of was that Juneau is "essentially done" with heavy snow and the capital city broke more records this month.

Juneau's winter storm warning ended at noon Wednesday. But Monday's new December snowfall record of 63.4 inches had grown to more than 80 inches as of Wednesday afternoon. She said an official measurement will be taken at the Juneau International Airport at midnight — Jan. 1, 2026.

Single-day snowfall records were set five times in December, including three of the last four days,, according to the weather service.

In addition to the month-long record, Juneau also received more snowfall within a short timespan than any previous time in recorded history, based on the snowpack at the airport. The depth as of Wednesday morning was 50 inches, the highest ever recorded, according to Ferrin. The previous record was a 41-inch snow depth from February 1949.

Ferrin added the weather clearing up for a "nice four-day long break" will provide an opportunity to push back snowbanks and mitigate personal property.

City Manager Katie Koester said the break in the weather should allow city crews to catch up on plowing.

"The big challenge right now is there's nowhere to put the snow, and those streets are exceedingly narrow, and so even when we can make a pass through a neighborhood, there's really nowhere to store that snow, and the snow removal process takes a long time because we basically have to, either with snow blowers or loaders, load all of that snow up into dump trucks and then take it away," Koester said. "We're also having challenges with snow storage sites, just because of the tremendous volume of snow, so trust that crews are working around the clock."

The city and state have both provided winter road maintenance priority maps.

The recent storm's risk continues with an avalanche advisory remaining in effect for Thane and above Behrends Avenue, according to the City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and the weather service. Thane Road closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Pat Dryer, an avalanche specialist for DOT, manages the Thane Road avalanche program. He said several small avalanches were detected along the corridor overnight, but no large avalanche reached the roadway.

"With continued snowfall, warming temperatures and precipitation, the hazard remains elevated along Thane Road," Dryer said.

He said every year is a little different in Juneau's snowpack structure. The prolonged period of cold, dry weather leading up to the massive snowfall led to a weak snowpack structure, which is not supportive of new snow. Assessments of potential hazards to Thane Road are continuing, with DOT scheduled to conduct avalanche hazard reduction measures between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursday via helicopters, either by explosives or a device known as a Daisybell.

This year, a five-point scale previously used to provide avalanche hazards has changed to a low-risk, elevated risk, or high-risk of danger on the avalanche advisory page, said Ryan O’Shaughnessy, the city's emergency manager. He said local experts informed the city that the five-point North American avalanche danger scale is designed for backcountry recreational use, and the new method aligns with the city's "ready, set, go" model used in response to preparing for 2025's glacial lake outburst flood.

"Right now at the CBJ, we are really in that set mode right in the middle where we do have a large snowpack above those two subdivisions, and with changes in the weather, those could turn into more hazardous conditions really quickly," O'Shaughnessy said. "So we really appreciate everybody being prepared, and that looks like having a go bag, knowing what your evacuation plan is, and being prepared for that."

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.