The 2023 Mendenhall Glacial Lake Outburst Flood and a look at other Alaskan glacial dammed lakes

Speakers: Aaron Jacobs (National Weather Service) and Crane Johnson (Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center).

Join us for this month’s VAWS webinar to learn about glacial dammed lakes in Alaska and how they present a unique hazard to downstream communities due to the uncertainty and transient nature of lakes filling and catastrophically releasing. A glacial lake outburst flood in 2023 resulted in record water levels on the Mendenhall River with both major flooding and significant erosion. An overview of the area, monitoring efforts, understanding of these events will be presented along with plans for future monitoring and reporting. Glacier dammed lakes are not unique to the Juneau area, there are many more glacial dammed lakes across the state with some documented well and others very poorly understood. We will present a brief look at a few of the lakes monitoring and the potential downstream impacts.