November 20, 2020

Podcast: Major Windstorms of the Pacific Northwest and the Thanksgiving Week Forecast

 During the past week, two strong windstorms have influenced our region, with the most intense storm crossing the tip of Vancouver Island.   My podcast will be a little longer today, with a detailed view of some of the great Pacific cyclones that have hit our region.   And I will also review the forecast, with specific emphasis on this weekend and Thanksgiving Day.  

A hint: look forward to a pleasant Thanksgiving Day stroll before your turkey!

The strongest eastern Pacific Cyclones Can Be the Equal of Category 1-2 Hurricanes

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7 comments:

  1. You should come on a wind storm chase with me and Washington Weather Chasers, Cliff. We could do an interview of you on the Coast during the storm. We'll buy you lunch, dinner and get you a hotel room!

    We have been working with a few other news networks as well recently, so it might be fun to get the word out on our windstorms.

    I've noticed that quite a few people stay on the coast in the winter months just to storm watch, we interviewed a few this last week. Very fun...

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  2. Michael.... I always thought that there was a major tourism potential for storm watching on the WA coast. Imagine talks on the big storms, following the meteorology, and enjoying the power of the weather there. Give me a call or email...cliff

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  3. Recalling the Columbus Day storm: My buddy and I were making a nuisance of ourselves at Lemke's Drugs, in Rainier Beach. Old Man Lemke warned us that we'd better get home; according to his son in Portland there's a big storm on its way. Yeah, right. Walking home we could feel street gravel striking our shins. That was some serious wind.

    Recalling the Hanukkah Eve storm: The Seattle Times headline over an overhead picture of a house surrounded by fallen trees: "What a Mess!"

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  4. The windstorm that I experienced was the February 7, 2002 storm in the south Willamette Valley. Haven't experienced anything like that again.

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  5. Great podcast, I can remember back to the 1981 storm as my first, I was 9. I always dream about seeing something like the columbus day storm some day.

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  6. While the Columbus Day storm was the greatest recorded wind storm in NW history, it was not the greatest NW storm.

    The greatest NW storm was the December 1-3 2007 storm. That storm produced sustained winds 30-50 mph for two days leading up to the grand finale storm on Dec 3 with gusts 100 - 147 mph (best since Columbus Day storm). The wind produced the highest storm surge ever recorded on the West Coast (5.1 ft) rewriting coastal engineering text books. The rainfall at one gage was 19.6” (24hrs), highest 24 hr rainfall ever recorded in the NW.

    The rainfall runoff produced the only 500 year (USGS) flood ever recorded in Washington (Doty gage, Chehalis river). Also, the highest sustained hourly rainfall every recorded in WA (.7 - .9”/hour) for more than ten hours. In addition, hundreds of landslides were seen. Plus, substantial tree blow downs occurred. BTW, 100 kt wind at 850 mb on the SLE sounding.

    The NWS Portland issued the first ever hurricane wind warning for the West Coast.

    Sorry, Columbus Day storm fans – this was a greater storm!

    https://www.wfpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Weyco-flood_synopsis_Jan2008_senate-2.pdf

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  7. Cliff, I'll bet a podcast about Lenticular Clouds would be well received. One of the more lovely and iconic weather features of a region with stratovolcanoes, I had never really noticed them until moving to this area.

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