The Big Blow, and other weather stories
A storm of historic proportions slammed into the northwestern portion of the country last Tuesday. Very strong winds led to numerous power outages, downed trees and power lines and damaged buildings.
It was certainly a day of extremes as Coeur d’Alene started off with its first measurable snowfall of the season, 1.1 inches. By the afternoon, winds were gusting to 60 miles per hour at Cliff Harris’ station out on Player Drive. The highest wind gust at the Coeur d’Alene Airport was 58 miles per hour last Tuesday.
The highest wind speed reported in Idaho was in Bonner County at Colburn with a whopping 101 mph gust. In Kootenai County, winds at Huetter hit 67 mph. Magee Peak in Shoshone County had a gust of 82. Worley reported 60 mph and Post Falls had a gust of 55.
The strongest wind gust in eastern Washington occurred at the Mission Ridge Ski Area in Chelan County with an incredible gust of 137 mph. One observer near Wenatachee reported a gust of 101. Comparing these wind speeds to hurricanes, a Category 1 storm has sustained winds of 74 miles per hour. The wind gust at the Mission Ridge Ski area was in the Category 4 range of a hurricane.
Both Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base reported wind gusts of 71. Some areas did break records for the highest wind speeds. The Spokane reading was a record for a non-thunderstorm event. The highest wind speed in Coeur d’Alene occurred during the Columbus Day Storm in 1962 with a gust of 73 mph. At the Spokane Airport, the all-time record is 77, reported on June 21, 2005.
Of course, there were power outages across eastern Washington and North Idaho. According to Avista, there were about 161,000 customers who were without power last Tuesday night. That was approximately 42 percent of Avista’s customers. That figure is higher than the huge 1996 ice storm on Nov. 19 when 100,000 customers went without power. As of late last week, many residents and businesses were still without power and crews were working around the clock to restore electricity.
In other parts of the Northwest, strong winds left 178,000 customers without power in western Washington. Parts of the Snohomish River did flood due to heavy rainfall and there were also two mudslides in that region. This extreme weather last week wasn’t confined to the Far West. Blizzard conditions buried parts of High Plains and Colorado with over a foot of snow. Nearly 30 tornadoes hit Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska.
As I mentioned in an article in mid-October, our region often experiences big wind storms during the fall season and early spring seasons. This is a time when we get massive collisions between the cold and warm air masses during these “transition” periods that will generate strong winds due to large differences in atmospheric pressure from one area to another. Many people say that Tuesday’s storm was the worst in 19 years, since the infamous 1996 ice storm.
As of late last week, it looks like a storm was poised to move into our area from the north bringing some snow to the Inland Northwest on Tuesday. Once the storm passes, it should be dry and cold for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I recently gave us a 25 percent chance of a White Thanksgiving, and it seems that Tuesday’s storm, one of the two storms to produce snow in November, may leave some of the white stuff on the ground on Thanksgiving Day as highs will only be in the 20s.
This chilly weather pattern is not very common in an El Nino event, the warmer than normal sea-surface temperature pattern. Overall, conditions in our part of the world are milder and drier than average. Cliff and I see rain and snow during the first week of December. But, most of the moisture next month is likely to go south of our area, which is more typical of El Nino. We do expect to have an additional storm system that will generate strong winds in December and January, but not to the extent of what we had last week.
As I mentioned in a previous column, there is still the chance of icy weather this winter season thanks to the strong El Nino. With the expected milder than normal weather, the chances of a White Christmas are still less than 50/50, but this is an extreme weather pattern so anything is possible.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Contact Randy Mann at Randy@longrangeweather.com