Winter Storm Watch — Western Arctic Coast was recorded by Global Incident Tracker on Tuesday, 20 October 2026 at 22:39 UTC. The event is classified as a cold wave incident with a severity rating of Severe, and was detected through the US National Weather Service (NWS).
Winter Storm Watch issued October 20 at 2:39PM AKDT until October 25 at 4:00PM AKDT by NWS Fairbanks AK * WHAT...Blowing snow possible. Total snow accumulations up to 4 inches possible. Winds could gust as high as 65 mph. Visibilities may drop below 1/4 mile due to falling and blowing snow. * WHERE...Point Hope. * WHEN...From late Thursday night through Sunday afternoon. * IMPACTS...Travel may be impacted. Areas of blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. Very strong winds could result in power outages.
Where this happened
The incident is located in United States (North America), whose capital is Washington, D.C.. Historically, United States is most affected by hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. You can follow every incident recorded in this country, updated live, on the United States incident tracker.
Approximate coordinates of the reported event are 37.100°, -95.700°. The marker on the map above shows this position; for news-derived reports the location reflects the place named in media coverage and may represent a district or city rather than an exact site.
Understanding cold wave events
Extreme low temperatures causing deaths, crop loss and infrastructure failure. Cold waves cause deaths through hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning from improvised heating, and cardiac events during exertion such as snow clearance. Infrastructure failures often compound the risk.
How severity is rated
Global Incident Tracker rates every event on a four-step scale — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — derived from the source signal: earthquake magnitude, official GDACS alert colour, or the volume of independent media reporting for news-derived incidents. This event is currently rated Severe. Ratings can change as more information becomes available, and a rating is a monitoring signal rather than an official government assessment.
Safety guidance for cold wave situations
- Never use charcoal, generators or gas stoves for indoor heating; carbon monoxide kills silently.
- Dress in layers and keep extremities covered; wind chill accelerates frostbite.
- Check on isolated and elderly people, and keep pipes protected against freezing.
- Avoid heavy exertion such as snow clearance if you have heart conditions.
- Follow only official instructions from local authorities and emergency services — this page is a monitoring record, not an emergency alert.
Data and verification
This record was generated automatically from the US National Weather Service (NWS) and de-duplicated against our archive. Early reports for any incident can be revised: locations get refined, magnitudes are recalculated and impact figures change as assessments arrive. We deliberately do not publish casualty numbers unless an official source states them. The original source report is linked at the top of this page.
Keep watching the situation on our live world incident map, browse every cold waves we track on the Cold Wave tracker, or see today's global picture on the incidents today page.
Timeline and sources
Official warning
Issued by U.S. National Weather Service. A warning or forecast describes a hazard; on its own it is not a report that harm occurred.
How statuses are decided · the number of reports is never treated as confirmation.
-
· received · event time 20 Oct 2026, 22:39 UTCFirst report Official warning
First recorded from U.S. National Weather Service.
Times are when this site received each report, in UTC; the event time is shown where the source gave one. Copies of one syndicated story count as one report.
Conditions at the time
No rainfall was recorded that day, and the temperature peaked at 20°C. Conditions are shown for context only — they do not establish a cause.
Weather reanalysis for this location and date via Open-Meteo.