Well Praise God, I woke up today feeling great, and went to work!!
I spent all morning going through the pile in my inbox then had to go to Oak Harbor.
It was really windy and I had fun trying to keep the van on the road. I got back around 2:00 just in time for the power to go off. I hung around the office until 4:00 and went home and set up my battery lamps, coleman stove and got my book and crocheting and hunkered in my comfy down throw and read and crocheted for three hours, then took a hot bath and decided to go to bed and the power came back on about 9:30!!
Of course I had to come to my computer to see if anyone was here knocking, and blogger is down. bummer.
I read my weather forecast and it says we are in for yet another big storm on Thursday!
Dear Phyllis,
Tweet! Break is over.
After a nice 10-day hiatus from the zany weather of this season, the jet stream has found its way back to the Pacific Northwest, bringing a return to our stormy pattern that we know and love from November.
The one today brought a lot of rain and mountain snow, but the wind was this storm's calling card. Gusts reached as high as 70-90 mph along the coast, and 45-60 mph in the interior.
Here's the peak gusts with this storm:
Tatoosh Island: 91 mph
Westport: 83 mph
Sekiu: 75 mph
Ozette (Clallam County): 70 mph
Hood Canal Bridge area: 70 mph (DOT Estimate)
Clallam Bay: 70-80 mph (estimate)
Ocean Shores: 65 mph
Bellingham: 63 mph
Alki Beach (W. Seattle): 62 mph
Oak Harbor: 61 mph
Incidentally, some of the strongest gusts around the Puget Sound area weren't from the windstorm, per se, but a microburst that rolled over the area.
Anyway, the peak of the storm passed in the early evening, and winds were expected to gradually die down through the night, although still remain gusty to 20-35 mph. Lows will stay in the mid 40s.
Tuesday will be a break, with just scattered leftover showers mixing with some sunbreaks. Highs will be around 50.
But the break will be brief. Another storm rolls in Tuesday night into Wednesday. This one will also bring some wind, but probably just a small notch below the storm of today -- perhaps gusts to 50-60 mph along the coast and 40 mph in the interior. But rain and more mountain snow is a given.
Rain and wind taper off later Wednesday, leaving us with a brief break Wednesday night through Thursday morning.
However, yet another storm comes in Thursday afternoon and this one has the potential to be the strongest of the three. So definitely keep an eye on the forecasts. Looks like the initial "pre-storm" winds along the coast and Northwest Interior will begin around midday to early afternoon, with the front bringing the winds everywhere else either Thursday night or early Friday morning.
This front ushers in some colder air behind it, lowering snow levels to around 500 feet by the weekend. This is not a pattern for widespread snow like a few weeks ago, just a few "lumpy rain" showers with perhaps some slushy accumulations on the hilltops and in the Convergence Zone. Highs will be around 40 both Saturday and Sunday, with lows in the low 30s.
Looks like we moderate back to the usual occasional rain and wind again for next week. Long range forecasts at this point advertise a rather boring weather pattern for Christmas of occasional light showers, but I think another break might be atop many meteorologists' Christmas lists by then anyway :)
Updated Monday 5:20 p.m. more... Sincerely, KOMO 4 Weather Producer Scott Sistek
So what we get here, goes over the mountains and picks up steam and becomes your December Blizzard for you folks east of us! hehehehe fill up your supplies, folks! Batteries, water, coleman stove, battery lamps, cans of soup, etc.
We're in for a L-O-N-G winter!!
