New National Weather Service office?

[conestogo_flood]

I am really confused over this.

While looking through http://kamala.cod.edu/wsw/ I noticed a new name from Alaska.

Winter Weather Warning
PAYA - YAKUTAT AK 0647 AM AST FRI JAN 20 2006

The other ones are on there too.
Winter Weather Warning
PAFC - ANCHORAGE AK 1115 AM AST FRI JAN 20 2006

Winter Weather Warning
PAFG - FAIRBANKS AK 1043 AM AST FRI JAN 20 2006

Winter Weather Warning
PAJK - JUNEAU AK 200 AM AST SAT JAN 21 2006

When I looked on the Alaska NWS site, I couldn't find any Yakutat office. Then I found this:
http://pajk.arh.noaa.gov/ NWS Juneau website
Then...
http://paya.arh.noaa.gov/ NWS Yakutat website

They are both the same thing. When you click on Juneau, it says it is Yakutat office. Then on Juneau, when you click on Yakutat, it's the Juneau office.

http://paya.arh.noaa.gov/office.php That is the office information for Yakutat.

Is Yakutat a new office?

[WindRunner]

After a little looking around, some information was to be found. I do not think Yakutat is a new office, it is simply just a Weather Service Office (WSO), of which Alaska has several of. However, the three Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) in Alaska remain Juneau, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. This page, which can be found off of the Alaska Region HQ page (left bar, towards bottom, "Weather Offices") lists all of the offices in Alaska.

This is not what I was expecting to find, as all of the offices in the lower 48 appear to be WFOs, which is why your forecast and products come from them. WSOs do not, apparently, produce forecasts or issue warnings, watches, or advisories. As to what they do do, the only thing I can think of is collect observations for Juneau/Fairbanks/Anchorage to use when making forecasts and issuing products.

If you want to do a little more research, try some of the links off of the NWS's "Organization" page.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/organization.php

[wall_cloud]

one WSO still exists in the lower 48 states. That is Williston, ND. Don't ask me why.

As far as the Alaska WFOs, they may also be responsible for Rawindsone releases (but I don't know for sure.