Blizzard, then bitter cold: Western Alaska’s winter swings upend life in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta

The snow started as a gray curtain over the flat tundra, then thickened until the runway lights at Bethel’s small airport faded into white. By Sunday afternoon, Jan. 4, pilots were tying down their bush planes as visibility dropped and radio traffic filled with one message: nothing else was getting in or out.

“Blizzard conditions expected. Total snow accumulations between 8 and 16 inches. Winds gusting as high as 50 mph,” the National Weather Service warned that weekend for the Kuskokwim Delta and nearby Western Capes of Alaska.

For most of the country, the storm that swept across western Alaska on Jan. 4 and 5 was just another winter system. But in the Yukon‑Kuskokwim Delta — a vast, roadless region where communities depend on small aircraft, snowmachines and seasonal ice roads — it was the latest in a string of extreme weather events that are reshaping daily life at the edge of the Bering Sea.

Warnings escalated as visibility fell

Forecasters issued a series of escalating alerts before the storm. A winter weather advisory on Jan. 1 cautioned of 2 to 5 inches of snow and blowing snow along the Kuskokwim Delta coast and Nunivak Island. The next day, a winter storm watch flagged “blizzard conditions possible,” with 6 to 12 inches of snow and winds up to 50 mph.

By Saturday afternoon, Jan. 3, the language had hardened. The Weather Service office in Anchorage upgraded to a blizzard warning for the Kuskokwim Delta and Western Capes, calling for as much as 16 inches of snow, wind gusts to 50 mph and visibility “reduced to as low as one quarter mile or less at times.” Forecasters cautioned that “near whiteout conditions will be possible at times across the Kuskokwim Delta through Sunday night due to strong winds and heavy snow.”

On Sunday morning, the agency’s Fairbanks office issued a separate blizzard warning for the Yukon Delta coast and lower Yukon River. There, 3 to 8 inches of snow were expected, with gusts up to 45 mph and a similar risk of whiteouts. “Visibilities may drop below 1/4 mile due to falling and blowing snow,” the warning said. “Travel could be very difficult.”

Those warnings carried particular weight in a region where there are no roads linking most villages to the rest of Alaska.

A storm that can isolate communities

The Kuskokwim Delta, anchored by the regional hub of Bethel, is a low, treeless expanse of frozen wetlands and tidal flats at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River. The Yukon Delta coast and lower Yukon River communities sprawl to the north, a web of small, predominantly Alaska Native villages perched on riverbanks and barrier islands only a few feet above sea level. Offshore lies Nunivak Island, home to the village of Mekoryuk, reachable only by small plane or boat and snowmachine.

In such places, a blizzard is more than a traffic headache. It can halt the mail plane that brings groceries and medicine, delay medical evacuations for serious illnesses or injuries, and make the snowmachine trails that link neighboring villages effectively disappear.

During the Jan. 4–5 storm, the pattern likely followed what residents know from experience when blizzard warnings go up: flights canceled or delayed, schools closed or moved online where possible, and families relying on VHF radio and local stations for updates until conditions ease. The Weather Service alerts warned that travel could be very difficult and that gusty winds could “blow around unsecured objects,” a concern for power lines, satellite dishes and communications equipment that have been stressed repeatedly in recent storms.

Part of a longer run of extremes

If the blizzard had been the lone event this winter, it might have faded quickly from outside attention. Instead, it slotted into a year‑long sequence of extremes.

In October, the remnants of Typhoon Halong drove hurricane‑force winds and record storm surge into parts of the Yukon‑Kuskokwim Delta. Officials described communities such as Kipnuk and Kwigillingok as “completely devastated,” with homes destroyed, residents displaced and at least one death reported. Some families are still living in temporary or damaged housing.

In early December, a strong system brought a mix of heavy freezing rain, snow and wind to the same region. The Weather Service warned at the time of significant icing, up to three‑quarters of an inch in places, additional snow and gusts above 45 mph, advising against travel and noting the potential for power outages.

The January blizzard arrived on the heels of those storms — and was followed almost immediately by something else.

Extreme cold followed within days

By Jan. 8, as residents dug out from drifts and snowplows cleared airstrips and boardwalks, a new round of warnings appeared: extreme cold. The Weather Service cautioned that wind chills in parts of western and southwestern Alaska, including the Kuskokwim Delta and Bristol Bay, could plunge to between minus 40 and minus 60 Celsius (minus 40 to minus 76 Fahrenheit). In its public messaging, the agency said, “Exposed skin may develop frostbite in as little as 5 minutes under the coldest conditions.”

The cold was severe enough that organizers of the Bogus Creek 150, a well‑known Kuskokwim Delta sled‑dog race, postponed the event scheduled for Jan. 8, citing dangerous wind chills. Just a year earlier, the same community races had been delayed for the opposite reason: unseasonably warm temperatures and a lack of snow that left river ice unsafe.

That back‑to‑back contrast — a near‑snowless, rainy winter followed by deep snow and brutal cold — has become a focus for climate specialists who study western Alaska.

Why the swings are getting sharper

Long‑term records from Bethel show that winters have warmed markedly in recent decades, with seven of the 10 warmest winters there occurring since 2001. The average winter temperature in the region is now roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than it was in the 1960s. The winter of 2024–25 ranked among the mildest on record, with January temperatures about 13 degrees above normal and rain falling where snow once dominated. The Kuskokwim River ice road, a seasonal highway for trucks and snowmachines, was closed at times because of poor ice.

At the same time, researchers note that a warmer Bering Sea can hold and release more moisture. When cold Arctic air moves over those waters, the result can be heavier snowfall. Climate experts have warned that big winter storms with heavy snowfall could become more common in the Y‑K Delta, even as average temperatures rise and early‑season snow and ice become less reliable.

Sea ice is also forming later and melting earlier along Alaska’s western coast, reducing a natural buffer that once dampened waves and storm surge. With less ice, coastal storms can push water and debris farther inland, worsening erosion in low‑lying villages — a problem laid bare by the storm surge from Typhoon Halong’s remnants.

For residents of the Yukon‑Kuskokwim Delta, those climate signals arrive not as charts but as a series of practical challenges: an ice road that cannot be trusted, winter hunts cut short by thin ice or sudden storms, school calendars scrambled by weather closures, races postponed for reasons that reverse from one year to the next.

“One warning at a time”

The January blizzard itself does not appear to have broken snowfall or wind records. Weather Service offices in Anchorage and Fairbanks described it in technical terms familiar to forecasters tracking strong Bering Sea lows. What sets it apart is its place in the sequence — a heavy‑snow event in a once‑again frigid winter, layered on top of floods, ice and erosion that have already forced some villages to weigh the possibility of relocating.

As the snow settles into hardpack on the tundra and the bitter cold eases, life in the Delta resumes its normal rhythms: planes flying again, children back in school, hunters planning their next trip. But the latest storm underscores a reality that many here have already absorbed. In western Alaska, winter is no longer a predictable stretch of deep cold and dependable ice. It is a season of swings — from flood to freeze, from rain to whiteout — that communities must navigate one warning at a time.