National Weather Service: Midwest storm to cause random loops

By
Suzanne Downing
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3

(45-second read) PACKAGES GOING TO ATTU? REALLY?

Another major snowstorm is on its way to the Plains and Midwest this weekend, and the National Weather Service in Kansas City says it will affect not only travel across the country but will add miles and miles of flight for packages going to Alaska.

According to the National Weather Service, a package leaving Kansas City will have to travel 9,624 and perform a random loop over the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, before landing in Attu.

The NWS says that the route above is the one that could likely be taken along the weather pattern to avoid the storm, and “a lot can happen along that journey to alter the end result.”

Attu, population 20, is the farthest island in the Aleutian Chain and there is no known UPS facility in Attu, although there is one in Kansas. Normally, a flight leaving Kansas City would travel 2,774 miles to Anchorage.

Must Read Alaska spoke with a Fed Ex pilot who could not figure out the map, and surmised that the National Weather Service may understand weather but flying packages to Alaska? Not so much.

Is it fake news or just a Weather Service social media intern with too much time on his hands?

 

3 COMMENTS

  1. I was stationed on Attu in the early 90’s and the only people on the Island were the Coasties that were stationed there. They closed the station in 2008 I believe and didn’t realize that there were still people out there….

  2. “air parcel” is describing a volume air, not a package to be shipped.

    What it’s saying is that a patch of air (say 1 cubic foot) in Attu today, will drift across the Pacfic along that pattern in the next week or so.

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