Weather Service to Make Changes to Petersville Forecast Zones

The National Weather Service in Anchorage will be making changes to the forecast zone for the Petersville area. The change will shift the boundaries to consolidate the area into one forecast zone rather than three.

According to Warning Coordination Meteorologist Aviva Braun, the zone change was prompted by the major flooding in the Petersville area that washed out roads and stranded about 30 people.

“It became apparent in September, early September, when there was a flooding event that affected Petersville. And it turned out that Petersville was within three separate zones. And we thought that that was unreasonable.” 

Braun says the zones are determined by a number of factors.

“Public forecast zones are based on geographical like areas that take into consideration geography, microclimates, different alerting needs across land areas.”

The zone changes will improve the forecasting for the Petersville area, according to Braun. 

“It will lead to more targeted alerting capabilities for the community of Petersville specifically, and then also give an identity to that zone as well.”

The changes are expected to be active on March 3 if there are no large-scale weather events that may delay the launch.