Weather Eye: Windstorm was one for the record books; showers loom locally

Saturday’s storm will go into the record books as the strongest August windstorm on record. Folks from one end of our state to the other were still without electrical power Monday afternoon. At one point, more than a half million customers in Washington were without power.

Cliff Mass, a professor at the University of Washington, said that the strongest wind on record at Destruction Island between May and September of this year was 58 knots. On Saturday, it was 78 knots, or 90 mph!

I rode the storm out at a beach house north of Ocean Park on the Long Beach peninsula. The wind was relentless for hours. Peak wind gust was 62 mph. Friday evening, before the big blow, the air was still and heavy, with no wind. There were no birds in the air. Even my little four-pound Yorkie was acting weird ,following me around and hiding in one of the rooms.

Amazing how nature’s critters can sense a big change in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, I was intently watching the satellite pictures and surface observations to our south. By late Friday, one could see that it was going to be a big one.