NWS Alaska Marine Zone Realignment

The National Weather Service (NWS) issues a broad range of marine forecast and warning products for geographical areas that Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) predetermine, called marine forecast zones. For Alaska, these forecast zones are managed by the three local WFOs located in Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau. The area of marine forecast responsibility for the WFOs in Alaska covers the Gulf of Alaska along with the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

In an effort to provide more specific marine weather information to our partners and the public, WFOs in Alaska have proposed a realignment of the marine forecast zones. The planned changes will result in more geographically-representative forecasts, advisory, watch, and warning products. A 'nearshore' forecast zone will cover from the coastline out to 15 NM. A second, 'coastal' forecast zone will then exist from 15 NM to 100 NM. In addition, changes have been made to other forecast zones in the eastern Gulf of Alaska, Prince William Sound, Aleutians, and Bering Sea. Due to all of these changes, most marine forecast zone names and numbers in Alaska will change.

Below you will find a detailed look at some of the significant differences between the current marine zones and the proposed marine zones broken down by WFO. These examples do not include all the changes being proposed.

Currently, one large coastal marine forecast zone (PKZ210) covers much of the northern Bering Sea. The proposal is to reduce the size of this forecast zone into smaller segments to provide more precise forecasts and warning products to the marine users in the Bering Sea. Also in this example, you see two new forecast zones on the north and south side of Saint Lawrence island. These run from the islands coast out to 15 NM.

Prince William Sound is heavily utilized by mariners for many activities such as fishing, kayaking, and tours. Currently, one marine zone (PKZ125) covers the entire sound which spans around 10,000 square miles. The realignment will reduce the sound into 3 smaller zones which allows for more precise forecasts and alerts. Also visible in this example is the new nearshore coastal zones south of Prince William Sound which run from the coastline out to 15 NM into the northern Gulf of Alaska.

The marine zone realignment for the eastern Gulf of Alaska will see nearshore coastal zones along with a split of the existing coastal zone that runs from Cape Edgecumbe to Cape Fairweather. This split will occur on the northern side of Cross Sound. Additionally, the offshore forecast zone (PKZ310) will be split into north-south sections to provide more accurate forecasts and to align with WFO Anchorage. There will be no changes made to the zones in the Inner Channels of Southeast Alaska.

This change is part of a comprehensive plan to provide increased flexibility and improved accuracy of forecast, watch, warning, and advisory products in Alaska. Additional changes to public forecast zones across portions of the state are anticipated in the near future to improve NWS services and provide more targeted alerts to our partners and the public. The NWS looks forward to continued work with partners to consider additional refinements within the County Warning Areas.