Thursday December 11, 2014 started off innocently enough.
If you were in the Willamette Valley or southwest Washington you might have even  commented on how still the morning was.
“You think this wind is still coming today?,” someone asked me as I was dropping the kids off at school.
Also at the start of the day, rainbows put on a show. Thanks to Kari for sending in her picture of a double rainbow out near Happy Valley.
Around mid-day we were close to big changes so I tweeted and posted on Facebook that winds would come on rather suddenly in the afternoon.
They sure did. It was like someone flipped a wind machine on. The wind machine, in this case, was a strong area of low pressure moving from south to north off the coasts of Oregon and then Washington.Â
The whole thing was part of a west coast storm that had a lot of moving parts and brought Bay Area flooding to California plus high winds from San Francisco to Seattle!
Portland’s Most Powerful Gusts Since 1981
The wind gusts in Portland peaked at 5:23pm when a 67mph gust slammed the wind gauge at Portland International Airport. Must’ve been a bumpy flight in for some passengers!
The National Weather Service in Portland says that 67mph windspeed was our single strongest gust since November 14, 1981. That’s when PDX had a 71mph gust.
Eugene also tied its strongest December wind gust on record: 54mph Thursday, matching December 14, 2006.
Of course, it was windy everywhere (almost) so here’s the complete storm report from the National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon. Willamette Valley peak gusts on the left (click to enlarge) and Coastal and Coast Range gusts on the right.
  
All this wind pulled in warm air, setting new record highs for December 11th. Astoria. Hillsboro, McMinnville, Portland and Vancouver all were between 61 and 64 degrees and all set new records!
Now, we’re headed for a much calmer weekend…
Love your work Bruce; hang in there!
Patricia:
Thank you so much. And I am!
Bruce; The wind came here shortly before 10 pm. We didn’t have quite the strong gusts as you did , but thousands lost power in the greater Vancouver area anyway. Very mild air, as you noted: I recorded 54 F around midnight.