Storm buffets Aleutians, bodes ill for Lower 48

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The edge of a rapidly intensifying storm began pummeling parts of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Friday, signaling its arrival by lashing the western tip of the island chain with hurricane-force winds.

Sustained winds of 70 mph and gusts up to 96 mph were recorded Friday morning on Shemya Island, where 120 people had locked themselves indoors to wait out the storm.

The brunt of the storm – the remains of Typhoon Nuri – is expected to pass into the Bering Sea and weaken as early as today, but it still will push unseasonably frigid air into much of the U.S. next week, the National Weather Service said.

Shemya Island is where the U.S. military operates Eareckson Air Station, which serves mainly as an early warning radar installation. Acting manager Don Llewellyn said no one was going outside, but people could see light poles waving.

Forecasters said waves could be as high as 50 feet, prompting ships and fishing vessels to get out of the storm’s path or seek protected harbors.

The storm was expected to surpass the intensity of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy and has the potential to be one of the more intensive to ever hit the North Pacific, meteorologists said.

The system is expected to freeze much of the Lower 48 next week, forecaster Bruce Sullivan said. Snow also is coming to areas including the northern Rockies and northern Plains.

Amid prospects that the storm could dip into the upper Midwest, National Weather Service meteorologist Gino Izzi in Chicago offered a warning to that region’s populace: Winter is about to hit, sooner there than usual.