High Wind — Central Coast, Washington

2007-12-02 to 2007-12-03 · Central Coast, Washington

Event narrative

Power was out for about 30,000 customers in Grays Harbor county. For the first time ever, all of the main power transmission lines coming into the county were severed. Two line men were injured while trying to repair power lines. Several locations along many highways were closed due to fallen trees and power lines. Every state route out of Aberdeen was closed. Many downed trees landed on houses and cars. In the Quinault area hundreds of trees fell, most over popular nature trails and forest roads. Beachside hotels had several windows blown out and many outdoor signs lost. One man in Aberdeen was killed by a falling tree while working to clear out another tree that had fallen.

Wider weather episode

A deep Pacific storm system offshore created strong south to north pressure differences along the coast for an extended period of time. The unique characteristic of the high wind was its duration--high wind lasted for about 18 hours on the coast. At one point, about 73,000 customers were without power. It took about a week to get power restored to everyone.

This storm also brought a variety of hazardous winter weather elsewhere in western Washington including lowland snow, heavy rainfall, flooding, landslides and avalanches in the Cascades.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 66221. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.