“Talk about the ‘middle of nowhere!’”

 The Aleutian Island chain in Alaska is infamous for its unpredictable weather patterns. This is primarily because the southern shores of the islands are warmed by the Kuroshio, the Japanese current. The northern shores of the islands are on the Bering Sea, notorious for icy weather every month of the year. To illustrate the climatic disparity between the two bodies of water, during the winter the Bering Sea has a solid mantle of ice from Alaska to Siberia that can be up to fifteen feet thick. To the south of the Aleutians, the waters are ice-free.

Considering the distance between the Kuroshio and the Bering Sea is between a dozen miles and zero feet, the mixing of the weather patterns creates the most unpredictable weather in the world. Worse, weather systems do not build; they arrive. Weather patterns change so quickly, flying in the Aleutians is not only hazardous but also time warping. It is possible to land in False Pass in clear weather and then suddenly be socked in immediately for a week with a storm no one saw coming. Having to crab to the port to take off from Cold Bay and then, halfway down the landing strip, being forced to crab to starboard because there are fifty-mile-an-hour winds at 180 degrees dividing the runway is not unusual. As Alaskan humorist Warren Sitka says, “Every time I think about flying in the Aleutians, I don’t.”

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