In rare weather event, remnants of Pacific hurricane hit Alaska

Remnants of Pacific Hurricane Oho batteredAlaska's southeast coast on Friday, the latest unusual weather eventto hit a state that so far this year has dealt with a lack of snow,warmer temperatures and intense wildfires.

The storm on Thursday brought more than 180 millimetresof rain to Ketchikan, a scenic town in Alaska's coastal rainforest.

Gusts of up to 128 kilometres per hour were forecast for Friday, and morerain was expected across the region. Jon Dorman, deputy emergencymanager for the city of Ketchikan, said Friday morning that creekswere swollen and residents were keeping an eye on the storm, but noother major issues had been reported.

The remnants of Oho were picked up by a larger low-pressuresystem. Oho was among a record number of tropical cyclones in thecentral Pacific so far this hurricane season, which officialsattributed to unusually warm ocean temperatures from El Nino.

While it's not unusual for Alaska to feel the remnant effects oftropical storms from the west, it's rare for the remnants of acentral Pacific tropical storm to reach this far because tropicalsystems north of Hawaii often fall apart rapidly as they reachcooler water temperatures, said meteorologist Shaun Baines of theweather service's Anchorage office.

Oho latest in spell of unusual weather

The storm is the latest unusual weather event to hit Alaska in2015: sparse snowfall pushed the start of the Iditarod sled-dog race640 kilometresto the north,dry conditions fueled oneof Alaska's worst fire seasonsand rain made for an especially wetsummer in Juneau.

Rick Thoman, a regional climate scientist with the NationalWeather Service in Alaska, said Alaska's run of sustained oddweather started in the spring of 2013, which saw exceptionally coldweather across mainland Alaska. By the end of May that year, though,"the switch got flipped," he said, with much of the stateexperiencing warmer conditions.

That can be attributed partly to persistent high pressure overthe eastern Pacific that has helped warm sea-surface temperatures,resulting in a mass of warm water off the coast of the northwestU.S. that has helped coastal areas stay mild and provided more watervapour for storm systems, he said. That helps explain the recentsoggy Juneau summers.

Last year, Juneau had its wettest summer on record, with morethan 600 millimetres of rain from June through August,Thoman said. Rainfall this past summer was just below 600 millimetresand was 60 millimetresmore than thethird-wettest summer, in 1961.

The persistence of the high pressure itself is odd. Forecasters'best guess, Thoman said, is that high-energy tropical thunderstormsprobably set the stage for the persistent high. Giant tropicalthunderstorms extend far into the atmosphere and can modify the jetstream much farther north, affecting weather even in Alaska, hesaid.

El Nino often means mild weather, particularly in the second halfof winter, for much of Alaska, Thoman said.