Taking advantage of the weather cameras around Prince William Sound is your ticket to skiing when your skins are mounted yet flat light is holding you back. Clouds roil overhead and snow showers come and go.  Dashing around grabbing sunspots is the main game on these days due to our high percentage of overcast sky conditions.  In the past five years webcams have become an important tool in increasing accuracy of 24-hour forecasts and high-speed Internet service has improved camera availability.   I could not be happier having Big Brother watching it snow!
     There are a dozen cameras around the area ranging from DOT RWIS System along the Richardson Highway to the FAA's vast array of cameras further south in Prince William Sound and beyond.   The FAA cameras offer a billy goat's view of incoming and passing storms.  By monitoring the cameras in a certain order, clearing weather can be better predicted during cloudy days. Coordinating Middleton Island radar and satellite updates with selective camera site directions allows one to track clouds or clearings through the area.
    Valdez area weather associated with storms typically arrives from the south and southwest. There are three camera sites in Prince William Sound that allow one to follow troughs through the area and peer behind them to see the approaching clear spots.  If viewed in proper order you get a sneak preview of approaching clouds, rain, snow and clearings.  Clues to recent precipitation can be gleaned from surrounding topography.  For example, look for fresh snow on nearby trees or wet gravel on a runway. Generally a wet camera lens indicates wind direction:  a wet east camera would mean wind from the west.

Middleton Island Camera - Middleton Island is south of Prince William Sound in the Gulf of Alaska, about 80 miles due south of Thompson Pass.  It is also the location of the National Weather Service Dopler Weather Radar for the area.  One camera looks north, so you can see behind the cloud bands approaching Valdez.  When you see clearing in the Gulf from the camera but clouds in Valdez, expect blue skies over Valdez within hours.  What happens at Middleton Island typically is on the way to Valdez.  This visual information combined with the hourly National Weather Service automated observations for Middleton Island such as wind speed and direction is good stuff for forecasting cloud coverage for our micro-climate deep in the central Chugach.

Johnstone Point Cameras (2) are conveniently located in Prince William Sound halfway between Valdez and Middleton Island on the north shore of Hawkins Island in Orca Bay.   They offer more unique views of storm clouds and potential clearing. Working between the two camera sites one can get a 360 degree view of cloud coverage in the Sound.  It's not unusual to see an approaching cloud band from the south, then switch to the Middleton Island camera and see clearing on the  backside of a trough heading to the Valdez area.

Potato Point Camera, located in the Valdez Narrows eight miles west of New Town, looks due south through Prince William Sound and is good for seeing incoming clouds but does little to track the backside of storms as they roll over Valdez and Thompson Pass.  The northeast camera peers a bit higher over Valdez and toward the Pass than does the Airport FAA camera.  This camera is handy to track stratus and fog persistence in Port Valdez.

Valdez Airport has four cameras that combined give a 270 degree view of the Port Valdez Arena with the exception of the north, which is abruptly blocked by the 6,000' wall of mountain behind Valdez.  These are excellent high resolution cameras and one looks towards the Valdez  Narrows. All the angles are excellent for determining cloud heights.

    Although most of our winter weather comes from the south, let's not forget that to the north is another set of cameras.  Of primary interest are the RWIS sites at Stuart Creek (Mile 46) and the Edgerton Cut-Off (Mile 82).  These cameras are relatively primitive but general sky and precipitation conditions can be determined along the north slope of the Chugach all the way to Anchorage.  The tendency is for forecasters in Valdez to look south toward the ocean for incoming storms, but I recommend that you also check the cameras located to the north as part of your morning routine.  Combining these views will help give you a broad overview of weather conditions, thus increased safety.
    Like traveling through avalanche terrain safely, weather forecasting requires utilizing all the tools to make the right call. And like avalanches, the true dynamics of weather are best learned through practical application and experience in the field. Continued improvement in weather monitoring with improved technology and an increased number of camera sites in remote parts of Alaska provides a high value service to backcountry skiers.

April 17, 2008