Higher seas, longer storm warning off Cape Fairweather to Icy Cape

The National Weather Service Juneau’s November 9, 2026, 5:52 a.m. Alaska Standard Time bulletin forecasts southeast winds of 40–60 knots, gusts up to 70 knots and seas of 37–42 feet for Cape Fairweather to Icy Cape, from 15 to 80 nautical miles offshore. It schedules the Storm Warning through midnight that night—the start of Tuesday, November 10—rather than the previous 9 p.m. ending.⁠27

Those details come from NWS alert records preserved by the independent archive Warning Vector. They establish how the forecast and warning schedule changed, but the latest live warning status has not been independently confirmed. The wind and sea figures are forecasts, not measurements showing that a vessel has encountered those conditions or that those sea heights have already occurred.

The distinction matters because the warning describes potentially destructive conditions, not a documented maritime casualty. NWS identifies vessel capsizing or damage and reduced visibility as dangers. The records reviewed do not establish a vessel loss, rescue, injury or death.⁠27

The worsening outlook developed in two steps. Sunday evening’s update raised both ends of the storm sea forecast by two feet, from 35–40 feet to 37–42 feet, while retaining the earlier wind speeds and storm schedule. Monday morning’s bulletin kept that higher sea range but pushed the scheduled storm ending back three hours and changed the forecast wind direction from east to southeast.⁠10⁠3⁠27

The two-foot increase is a change in the forecast, not evidence of a measured two-foot rise in the ocean. Likewise, the midnight deadline is a scheduled warning end, not a promise that the sea will become safe at that hour.

Geography is just as important as timing. This warning covers marine zone PKZ671, the offshore belt between Cape Fairweather and Icy Cape. It does not automatically describe the separate waters immediately along the coast. A route’s position relative to that 15-to-80-nautical-mile boundary determines which forecast area applies.⁠27

In our November 9 broadcast, we reported 35–40-foot seas and gusts up to 75 knots for Icy Cape to Cape Suckling, with a storm warning scheduled from 9 a.m. Monday through midnight. That was a different offshore zone, PKZ672. The revisions described here concern Cape Fairweather to Icy Cape; they should not be read as revisions to the neighboring zone’s figures.

The latest archived bulletin schedules a Gale Warning from midnight Monday night until 6 p.m. AKST Tuesday, November 10. For that period, it forecasts east winds of 35–45 knots, gusts up to 60 knots and seas of 30–35 feet. The warning category changes, but the forecast still describes a substantial offshore hazard.⁠27

That following gale has also been revised. Sunday afternoon’s outlook placed it from 9 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, with southeast winds of 35–45 knots, gusts to 65 knots and seas of 32–37 feet. Sunday evening raised its forecast winds to 40–50 knots and seas to 33–38 feet. Monday morning then changed both the timing and the expected conditions. Those earlier gale figures are superseded forecasts, not the latest outlook.⁠10⁠3⁠27

Nor was the storm expected to arrive after a wholly calm lead-in. Sunday’s outlook included a Small Craft Advisory with 7–8-foot seas, followed by a midnight-to-3 a.m. Monday gale forecasting east winds of 35–45 knots, gusts to 55 knots and seas of 7–12 feet. The sequence matters for anyone trying to find a passage window: the storm period was bracketed by other marine hazards.⁠10

One apparent timing contradiction in the alerts does not mean the warning ended early. The records carry separate deadlines for the message and the hazard. Sunday afternoon’s message expired before the scheduled Monday storm onset; Sunday evening’s message expired at 4:45 a.m. Monday while still scheduling the storm through 9 p.m. Its encoded warning interval and event-ending field agreed with that later ending.⁠10⁠3

The Monday morning record makes the same distinction: its message expires at 2 p.m. AKST Monday, while its warning text and event-ending fields schedule the storm through midnight. An expired message alone is therefore not evidence of cancellation. Equally, this archived sequence cannot establish whether a later bulletin extended, shortened or canceled the warning.⁠27

That instruction is the practical center of the forecast. Decisions about departure, course and securing a vessel need the latest warning for the actual route—not an older sea range, a neighboring zone’s forecast or a message-expiration timestamp mistaken for the end of danger. In the latest verified archived schedule, midnight marks a transition from storm to gale, not a return to safe water.