Generation, Evolution and Applicable Lessons Learned from Alaska’s Historic November 2011 Storm over the Bering and Chukchi Seas

摘要

One of the most powerful extratropical cyclones in the past several decades swept across the Bering Sea on 8-9 November 2011 bringing widespread storm-force winds, high combined seas and coastal flooding over a large part of western Alaska. An unusual aspect of this system was that it occurred very early in the season when most of the Bering Sea was ice-free, thus large waves offshore and coastal flooding impacted the region. The November 2011 storm’s location in the Bering Sea, and intensity at that location, made this system an atypical event. We seek to provide a historical perspective of this early season storm compared to two other potent early season extratropical cyclones that have occurred in approximately the same geographic area. These other storms were the November 1974 storm and the October 2004 storm. We will explore the large scale meteorological conditions present with each storm and look to draw a correlation between climatologic predictors of storms of this caliber. Lastly, a more detailed analysis of the impacts of the November 2011 storm will be given.