Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea into northwestern Canada.

• Main Authors: Paul Stark, America In Baja California
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Canada; Gulf of Alaska; Pacific; aleutian low; Beaufort Sea; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.394.6578; http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/085/mwr-085-01-0019.pdf

GULF OF ALASKA BLOCKING Ths great departure of this wind speed distribution from Blocking conditions in the Gulf of Alaska region pre- the January normal and from the pattern of December vailed throughout January 1957. The consequences of 1956 (see fig. 3A of [2]) was a direct consequence of the that aberration will be emphasized, but first. it will be persistent blocking in the Gulf of Alaska. shown how this tenacious feat'ure fitt'ed into the general The mean sea level chart for January and its anomalous circulation. pressure field (fig. 3) also reflects the blocking. On the Figure 1 is the 700-mb. 30-day mean chart for January January normal sea level map [13] high pressure in the 1957. The hemispheric circulation consisted of three eastern Pacific is confined to the area southward from 40' full-latitude troughs located along the east coasts of Asia K., while the region north of 40 ' N. is occupied by a lobe and North America and near the Ural Mountains. The of the Aleutian Low. This month, in contrast, the pattern would have been rather symmetrical had there eastern Pacific was covered by an extensive meridional been a fourth full-latitude trough in the eastern Pacific ant'icyclone, and sea level pressures in the Gulf of Alaska Ocean. Instead, the flow in that area was distorted by were as much as 21 mb. above normal.