Alaska Extended Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 607 PM EST Tue Jan 30 2024 Valid 12Z Sat Feb 03 2024 - 12Z Wed Feb 07 2024 ...Bitterly cold temperatures to linger over the Interior into late week... ...Overview... Deep upper troughing and embedded closed low over Alaska should shift east into northwest Canada by the weekend as upper ridging builds in upstream and shifts over the Mainland. This should help moderate bitterly cold temperatures across the state as well as usher in a drier overall pattern for much of the Interior and the Southeast. A deep upper low will affect much of the Aleutians late this week with increased precipitation and gusty winds before rotating north/westward and becoming absorbed into an additional upper low dropping down from the Kamchatka Peninsula. Multiple streams of energy rotating around the base of this broad trough will keep conditions unsettled across the Aleutians and more moderately into Southwest Alaska through the Alaska Peninsula, then eventually the Southern Coast. ...Guidance Evaluation/Preferences... The 12 UTC GFS/ECMWF solutions seem best clustered with GEFS/ECMWF/Canadian ensemble means over medium range time scales. Prefer to gradually increase blend influence from these models to the ensemble means over time, consistent with forecast spread growth. This plan maintains good WPC product continuity in a transitional pattern with seemingly near average overall predictability. ...Weather/Hazards Highlights... A deep surface low near the Aleutians into Saturday should support increasing precipitation from west to east as the cold front shifts through the Aleutians. Also likely to be a period of gusty high winds given the strong pressure gradient present. Additional surface lows into early next week will continue to keep unsettled conditions across the Aleutians and farther east towards Southwestern Alaska with wrapping flow, then downstream for the Southern Coast of Alaska. This will be fueled by general moist southerly flow as system energies/triple point lows split underneath the state into the northern Gulf of Alaska, with some modest periodic activity with weakened systems working toward the Southeast. Well below normal temperatures over the Mainland will linger through the end of the week (some locally colder than -50F over colder spots of the eastern Interior), but should continue to steadily ease heading into the weekend. After this, a general warm up will be in place as upper ridging builds over the state, but parts of the eastern Interior may hold onto the below normal temps even into early next week. By next Monday-Tuesday, the greatest positive anomalies should be across western Alaska and the North Slope along with parts of Southwest Alaska, where daytime highs could be 10-20+ degrees above normal, a strong contrast to conditions currently. Southeast Alaska looks to stay near or below normal most of the forecast period. Schichtel Additional 3-7 Day Hazard Information can be found on the WPC medium range hazards outlook chart at: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/threats/threats.php WPC medium range Alaskan products including 500mb, surface fronts/pressures progs and sensible weather grids can also be found at: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/ak_5dayfcst500_wbg.gif https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/akmedr.shtml https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/ak_5km_gridsbody.html