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Tanker damage prompts new weather post Two nonprofits, Coast Guard erect Kayak Island station to provide better weather coverage in region prone to dangerous ‘barrier jets’ Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
An incident involving a loaded oil tanker and ferocious winds in 2007 in the Gulf of Alaska has inspired installation of a new weather station on a remote island some 60 miles southeast of Cordova.
The station was erected July 16 at Cape St. Elias, on the southwestern end of uninhabited Kayak Island, which is about 20 miles long and two miles wide and takes its name from its shape.
Two nonprofit organizations, the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council and the Prince William Sound Science Center, teamed on the project. A helicopter crew out of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Cordova air station also assisted.
The weather station, designed by Micro Specialties Inc. of Wasilla, measures wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure and solar radiation.
The station reports hourly by satellite link and the data can be viewed online at http://denali.micro-specialties.com/CapeStElias.
Tanker hits freak wind The Prince William Sound RCAC, a Valdez-based oil industry watchdog group, purchased the station following an incident where a tanker hauling crude oil for Tesoro hit damaging high winds and seas.
On Dec. 10, 2007, the tanker Seabulk Pride, fully loaded, left the sound with both wind and waves below the limits above which authorities close the tanker lanes to ship traffic, according to a news release from Rob Campbell, an oceanographer with the Cordova-based science center who helped install the weather station.
“About 12 miles southeast of Hinchinbrook Entrance, the vessel encountered sustained winds of 63 miles per hour (55 knots) and gusts up to 132 miles per hour (113 knots),” Campbell wrote. “The ship sustained damage to its deck fittings when a wave broke over the bow. Later analysis of satellite data showed that the sea conditions were due to a barrier jet that advanced very rapidly up the coast from the southeast.”
A barrier jet is a narrow band of strong winds that can arise when terrain, such as a mountain range, blocks the movement of air masses.
“They occur frequently in the region from Cordova to Yakutat, particularly in autumn and winter. They typically form within 60 miles of the coast and can cause wind speeds in the range of 46 to 115 miles per hour,” Campbell wrote. “The onset of a barrier jet can be very rapid, with large changes in wind speed and direction over a few hours.”
The new weather station at Cape St. Elias is now providing ships and planes with better weather information in the Kayak Island area, Campbell said.
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