Bering Sea storm to blast Aleutians, trigger cold across U.S.

JUNEAU Alaska (Reuters) - The remnants of Tropical Storm Nuri will blast the Aleutian Islands with strong winds and high seas this weekend and later push cold air through Canada into the lower 48 U.S. states, a National Weather Service meteorologist said on Friday. The weather service has issued hurricane warnings for the extreme western Aleutian Islands, storm warnings for the Aleutians farther east and gale warnings even farther east in the Bering Sea, said Jeff Osiensky, a meteorologist with the Alaska region of the weather service. "It's very significant, in that the central pressure is very low. It's a very well-developed storm system, it's basically taking remnants of that tropical storm and you've got all the energy and moisture associated with that," Osiensky said. He said earlier forecasts that it might be a record-setting low pressure system did not look like they were materializing. Winds of 60 knots (110 kph) and seas as high as 19 feet (5.8 meters) were forecast for the western Aleutians on Friday, Osiensky said. He said as the storm moves inland it will force colder arctic air in Canada to stream south. "This storm is going to be responsible for some changes in the weather pattern which will allow that cold air to move into the lower 48," he said. (Reporting by Steve Quinn in Juneau and Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Editing by Jim Loney)