A windstorm that blew into the North Olympic Peninsula late Thursday has ushered in a rainy weekend from Forks to Port Townsend.
The storm brought wind gusts up to 43 mph in lowland communities and 73 mph on Hurricane Ridge on Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service, and knocked down trees across the North Olympic Peninsula.
Those winds have died down and are not expected to gust above about 25 mph in the coming days, said Johnny Burg, National Weather Service meteorologist, on Friday.
“There might be some breezy winds, which is usually 15 to 25 [mph],” he said, “but nothing like what we had [Thursday] night.”
“Our main concern over the coming days is going to be the rainfall amounts. The Olympics and Cascades and parts of the coast could see several inches of rain over the next couple of days.”
The rain will fall “mostly on the coast,” he said.
“Port Angeles might see close to an inch” over the weekend, “but it is hard to say,” Burg said.
Sequim and Port Townsend also can expect to see rains over the weekend, he said, although not as much as Port Angeles or the West End.
It is still too warm for snow to fall in the mountains, Burg said.
The high winds late Thursday and early Friday were caused by “a low-pressure center that was moving to the east over southern Vancouver Island,” Burg said.
“It created what we call a ‘southeast sucker’ — a low-pressure system that sucks the air.”
With that kind of scenario, “the coast and the northern interior usually see the strongest winds,” Burg continued.
”That is why we had a high-wind warning. Even though the wind speeds we had were wind advisory criteria, we put out a high-wind warning because this is the first event of the season and the trees still have leaves,” causing branches to “fall off and [causing] power outages.”
Clallam PUD spokesman Mike Howe said Friday morning that 2,000 customers were without power at some point during the storm.
Approximately 500 customers east of Sequim, which experienced wind gusts of 43 mph at 10:32 p.m. Thursday, began experiencing outages at the onset of the storm beginning at about 6:30 p.m., said Howe.
A second outage west of Port Angeles, where wind gusts were recorded at 37 mph at 4:32 a.m. Friday, affected about 70 customers.
By 10:10 p.m. Thursday, all of Neah Bay was without power, Howe said. Customers in the Forks and La Push areas also lost power.
Howe said crews worked through the night. Only isolated individual outages remained by 9 a.m. Friday, which were resolved later that morning.
The Jefferson County PUD reported no major outages, although crews responded to a call in the Cape George Road area near Discovery Bay after 9 p.m.
Power in the Cape George area was restored by 10 p.m.
At 10:24 p.m. Thursday, trees felled by the wind on U.S. Highway 101 at milepost 275 near the Clallam/Jefferson County line blocked the southbound lane, according to the state Department of Transportation. The roadway was reopened at 12:05 a.m. Friday.
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Features Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
