With a blizzard warning for a massive swath of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains lasting through 12 p.m. Wednesday, a meteorologist revealed peak wind speeds surpassed 100 mph.
“So in the Snoqualmie Pass, we had a wind speed of 82 miles an hour,” Kayla Mazurkiewicz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Seattle. “And then the Alpental ski area, we had a speed of 112 miles per hour. So for that blizzard warning, we just wanted to really highlight that wind there.”
While Mazurkiewicz couldn’t confirm whether this was a record for recorded wind speeds, she said the 112 mph winds are “probably close to” the all-time record.
Scott Sistek, meteorologist and author of the Emerald City Weather Blog, said high-resolution models are showing a powerful surge of west wind that could catch many off guard.
“This would in essence bring a ‘wall of wind’ rolling down the Strait past Port Angeles and Sequim, and then crashing into Whidbey and Camano Islands, Port Townsend, before slamming into western Snohomish County and Admiralty Inlet,” Sistek wrote.
According to Mazurkiewicz, Whidbey Island had winds of up to 71 mph.
“That area has a high wind warning. We are really seeing those westerly winds get funneled through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and kind of go through that Northwest interior,” Mazurkiewicz said. “Those areas are under a high wind warning, too.”
The greater Seattle metro area, all the way down to Olympia, is under a wind advisory, with gusts up to 35-40 mph occurring.
Nearly 300,000 people are without power in western Washington after flooding and a series of high winds.
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