High Wind — Central Willamette Valley, Oregon

2014-12-11 · Central Willamette Valley, Oregon

Event narrative

Strong winds resulted in several downed trees and power outages. One tree damaged the roof of a home in Dayton. Peak wind gusts for the Aurora and McMinnville Airports measured at 61 mph, and wind a peak wind gust of 71 mph was measured at Chehalem Mountain.

Wider weather episode

A 974 millibar surface low moved northward paralleling the coast around 80 miles offshore, and resulted in one of the strongest wind storms that Northwest Oregon had experienced in past several of years. The strongest winds occurred as high pressure filled in behind the low. In this event, the Willamette Valley was just as susceptible to the strong winds as the coast and coast range were. Most of the injuries, property damage, and power outages occurred in the Willamette Valley, but broken and toppled trees were widespread from the coast to the base of the Cascade foothills.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 553044. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.