A stormy weekend we are having. Saturday winds were gusting over 60 mph along our coastline, near 40 mph locally, and rain was falling in buckets. At 3 p.m. Saturday the heaviest rain was still to our west. This morning winds were expected to be from the northwest behind the powerful cold front.
The massive area of low pressure in the Gulf producing these storms will remain there. I mentioned some social media early reports last week of the lowest pressure on Earth with this storm. That was not quite true. The National Weather Service reported that the central pressure was 921 millibars or 27.70 inches.
Hurricanes have had lower barometric pressures. However, this is one of the strongest storms observed in the north Pacific. Extremely cold air in Siberia helped develop this storm as it moved into the Bering Sea. It kept getting stronger as it crossed the international dateline into the Gulf of Alaska. It is common to have a large low like this anchor itself in the Gulf during the winter months. It is the center of the great weather machine that brings us our storminess.
Meanwhile, looking back to 2020, our December rainfall in Vancouver could not gather enough rainfall those last few days of the month. We ended up with 5.41 inches, 1.36 inches below average. Early reports from our local observers show more rain in the outlying locations.
