Nome and much of Norton Sound's coastline were under winter storm warnings Wednesday as a weather system moving past the Aleutian Islands brought blizzard conditions to much of Western and Northwest Alaska.
The National Weather Service's Alaska headquarters listed a blizzard warning in effect for St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea and storm warnings for communities from St. Mary's in the south to Nome in the north, until 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The region was expected to see visibility fall to less than half a mile amid snowfall ranging from 1 to 4 inches and winds from 30 to 45 mph and gusts to 60 mph.
Conditions were severe enough for the state to close offices in Nome for the day, according to a Twitter message Wednesday morning.
Kirsten Swann, with Alaska Dispatch News travel website Show Me Alaska, tweeted a brief video of rain from the storm Wednesday morning from False Pass, on Unimak Island in the Aleutians East Borough.
Fairbanks-based National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Metzger, whose office covers the Nome area, said his office hadn't received any reports of damage -- but reported conditions Wednesday morning were severe.
"It's pretty ugly there right now -- they're having a pretty good storm go through," Metzger said.
Much of Alaska's coast north of Nome, from Shishmaref to Wainwright, and much of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and Bristol Bay were under winter weather advisories until at least 1 p.m. Wednesday, with some extending as long as 9 a.m. Thursday. Those areas were set to see up to 4 inches of blowing snow, with winds up to 30 mph gusting to 55 mph along the northern coastline and 45 mph in inland areas.
"Inland is not quite as bad as on the coast," Metzger said. "Once you get away from the coast, the wind dies down."
Mike Ottenweller, an Anchorage-based Weather Service meteorologist who covers the Bristol Bay area, said Wednesday morning that the storm was a product of a low-pressure system moving east past Southwest Alaska from the western Bering Sea.
"We had a little bit of a change in the pattern to break up the high over the eastern part of the state," Ottenweller said. "We had a fairly robust cold front move into the western part of the state last night."
Wednesday's forecast included a chance of significant snowfall in some parts of the Bristol Bay area, according to Ottenweller.
"We do expect for Bristol Bay we are still looking for about 4 to 10 inches today, and most of that is going to be from Dillingham northward," Ottenweller said. "Most of the rest of the area will be about 4 inches of snow."
By the weekend, Ottenweller said, the low-pressure system should enter the Gulf of Alaska, bringing "a showery, cold sort of northwest flow" to much of the Aleutian Islands and northwest Alaska.
Forecasters were also assessing the possibility of snow in Southcentral Alaska this weekend, when Anchorage could break a 1958 record for consecutive snowless days.
"Otherwise, the low is only going to impact Kodiak, Shelikof Strait for mariners," Ottenweller said. "We do have the potential for some snow here Saturday night into Sunday into the eastern Kenai, maybe Cook Inlet area."
Wednesday's storm arrived as President Obama declared a federal disaster in a severe December Bering Sea storm that struck the Pribilof Islands and also caused severe property damage in Adak.