Alaska Extended Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 223 PM EST Mon Jan 28 2019 Valid 12Z Fri Feb 01 2019 - 12Z Tue Feb 05 2019 Longwave pattern supports ridging over the mainland/interior with troughing exiting away from the Panhandle Saturday as the Bering upper low meanders about with a slow westward drift. This generally supports a storm track that will be split to either toward the Bering Strait or south of Southcentral through a weakness in the ridging. This is further reinforced by teleconnections from downstream troughing in the western CONUS/Canada and upstream ridging over southeastern China coupled with troughing to its north over Mongolia. Question in the medium range will be storm track/strength/timing that has been quite inconsistent among the deterministic models. Used the best ensemble clustering as a basis which included the 00Z ECMWF/12Z GFS to start but then mainly the ECMWF by next Sun-Tue. The 12Z GFS (and earlier runs) took a surface low farther east than nearly all ensemble members late Saturday into Sunday whereas the ECMWF/UKMET/Canadian were farther west near the ECMWF ensemble mean. Still brought the weakening front into Southwestern Alaska but the boundary would largely translate into the Gulf awaiting additional height falls upstream. Before that system, pesky shortwave trough will bring in a cold shot of air to eastern areas and then the Panhandle with temperatures 10-20 degrees below average. Cold front that skirts across the Gulf may bring in some snow to the Panhandle but recent trends has been for a weaker/flatter and farther south system as the cold air may help suppress the low. By the end of the period, slowly retreating Bering upper low will send a few systems through the Aleutians and eastern Bering Sea into Southwestern Alaska and then the Gulf in weakened form. ECMWF was near its ensemble mean and provided some detail to an otherwise unclear evolution of less-defined systems. Fracasso WPC medium range Alaskan products including 500mb, surface fronts/pressures progs and sensible weather grids can be found at: http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/ak_5dayfcst500_wbg.gif http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/akmedr.shtml http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/alaska/ak_5km_gridsbody.html