Not much snow, but feel the winds blow

The early portion of February saw more crazy weather across the globe. Here in the Inland Northwest, it’s been the case of a rain and snow pattern.

However, last week, snow was seen down into the southeastern U.S. as northern Georgia picked up several inches to the delight of snow enthusiasts. That same storm also spawned a few tornadoes in the South, which may be an indication of an active tornado season east of the Rockies.

The pattern across the Inland Northwest this February is certainly different than the one last year, when a whopping 56 inches of snow fell in Coeur d’Alene. The rest of this week looks mostly dry as high pressure will be building. There is a chance of snow later this weekend and again next week, but amounts will likely be on the light side.

The early portion of 2020 has already seen a number of days with fairly strong winds. Gusts in our region have been above 40 mph for four days in January and one day in February. A wind gust of 52 mph was reported at the Spokane International Airport on Feb. 1. Coeur d’Alene and surrounding regions reported wind gusts greater than 40 mph that day.

On Feb. 9, there was an unofficial wind gust of 209 miles per hour at a ski resort, the Kirkwood Mountain Resort in Kirkwood, Calif. The elevation of the site is nearly 9,200 feet. The official, at least so far, wind record for the Golden State is 199 mph at Ward Mountain west of Lake Tahoe, which occurred on Nov. 16, 2017. Social media “lit up” with the news of the potential wind record-breaker.

However, it may take some time before the wind gust can be verified, as the equipment used to record the wind speeds are not maintained by the National Weather Service. At the Alpine Summit, there was a gust of 125 and officials say the equipment used at Kirkwood may not have been reliable. By the way, a Category 5 hurricane, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, has sustained wind speeds of over 156 mph.

There was another headline that featured strong winds on Feb. 9. It was reported that a British Airways flight from New York’s JFK airport landed in London way ahead of schedule. The airline confirmed the flight time was only 4 hours and 56 minutes long, which would have made it the fastest subsonic flight from New York to London in history. Normally, the trip takes about 6 hours and 15 minutes.

Another airplane from New York to London landed half an hour later and was three minutes longer than the British Airways flight. There was also third aircraft from JFK that also came in under the old record of five hours and 13 minutes in January of 2018.

According to weather.com, the upper-level winds played a big role in helping the plane get to its destination in record time. Airplanes normally travel at altitudes from 30,000 to 40,000 feet, which is about the same level as the jet stream winds. On that day, it’s estimated that the winds at that altitude were over 200 mph, as some of the commercial airlines were likely traveling at speeds of over 800 mph. Flightradar said that the top speed of the British Airways aircraft was 825 mph on that record-breaking flight.

The speed of sound is 767 mph. When that speed is surpassed there is a “sonic boom,” or a loud sound caused by shock waves that are created by any object that travels through the air faster than the speed of sound.

However, in the case of the British Airways flight, the plane itself was travelling slower than the speed of sound, but the upper-level winds pushed the aircraft past the 767 mph limit, so there was no sonic boom.

The strong jet stream on that February day was fueling a massive storm that ripped through the United Kingdom, which was called Storm Ciara. Winds across that part of the world were gusting up to 80, damaging many buildings and causing widespread disruptions to transportation.

As impressive as that flight time was, the fastest flight from New York to London occurred on Feb. 7, 1996, when a Concorde flight crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2 hours and 53 minutes.

The fastest wind speed with a wind-measuring anemometer was an incredible 253 mph at Barrow Island in Western Australia. This happened on April 10, 1996, as Cyclone Olivia crossed over the western portion of the continent.

According to the Handy Weather Answer Book, the fastest daily average of wind speed was 108. That happened during a 24-hour period from March 21-22, 1951, in Antarctica. Now that’s what I call windy.

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Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com