Juneau continues to see heavy rains this week, after getting nearly a foot and a half of snow last week. That’s left road travel slippery and treacherous across town.
Greg Spann is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau.
“Juneau got about 17 inches of new snow out of that system, which is a lot of snow,” he said.
And since Sunday, it’s been raining heavily in Juneau. So, that means on top of all that snow — which is blocking drains — rainwater is pooling on the roads. He said even more rain is coming.
“Now we do have a lot of rain on the way,” Spann said. “Make no mistake here, we’re not out of the woods just yet, as far as rain.”
Another storm system is on the way later this week. But, Spann said it is not likely to get below freezing. Still, he recommends people drive very carefully, especially when approaching intersections. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch in Juneau, Gustavus, Petersburg, Wrangell and Kake until later tonight. Another one to two inches are expected in Juneau today.
Scott Gray, superintendent of the city’s Streets and Fleet Maintenance, said wet and heavy snow like this is especially hard to plow off the roads.
“It’s not an easy task once you get the rain on top of the snow that gets packed, and then you have packed ice on the roadway that is pretty much adhered to the asphalt,” he said. “And now it’s scraping trying to get that ice off the asphalt is just — it’s painstaking sometimes.”
Gray said it could be several more days before the roads are back in safer conditions.
“With the weather that we’re getting, we could be a week out before the roads are back up to where everybody likes them to be,” he said.
The City and Borough of Juneau maintains and clears residential streets, while the Alaska Department of Transportation plows highways like Egan Drive and Glacier Highway. Each prioritizes main arteries and routes for emergency services.
The Juneau School District had a remote learning day on Monday, and is back to in-person classes today with school buses on snow routes through Wednesday. Capital Transit will continue winter route changes to the bus service until tonight.
