High River Water Overflow

Observation by John Henry:

This past winter around the month of March, the community of Unalakleet experienced steady snow-fall off-and-on near that month. Around the end of April and first part of May of this summer, one of my co-workers made mention that his dad's cabin and fish rack, near Old Woman, which is approximately 40 miles out-of-town, was swept away. As of last year, he stated that the structures were about four-feet above the river line and about 3 1/2 feet from the bank. The only structure that remained was the outhouse, which was, as of last year, about 20 feet from the bank and now is about 10 feet from the bank. Furthermore, a former tribal council member made a comment that people have been able to go more towards Whaleback Mountain via the river than they have been able to in the past.

Richard L Thoman Jr, Alaska Region Climate Science and Services Manager with the National Weather Service, writes:

Unfortunately, there is no routine precipitation or snowpack information available for eastern Norton Sound or the Nulato Hills. Nome had much higher than normal snowfall for the 2017-18 winter, but the Nulato Hills can be quite different. However, this report strongly suggests that the end of winter snowpack was at least significantly above normal.

Comments from LEO Editors:

This observation has been forwarded on to the Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys and the Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center for more information on flooding and erosion trends this past season.

The Western Regional Climate Center shows an average precipitation level of 0.57 inches, and total snow fall of 5.3 inches, for Unalakleet during the month of March. According to future climate projections, precipitation levels are expected to increase around the state. In a figure from the Alaska Climate Science Center, precipitation levels in the Norton Sound area are expected to increase up to 10-20% between 2030-2059. Erica Lujan