Update 8:00PM
Looks like the worst is over. Peak gust here was 88.5kph. Heard reports of 110kph gusts in Campbell River and 90kph sustained winds in Port Hardy.
Pretty good storm! Hopefully you’re reading this with your lights on. BC Hydro shows power out on Stirling Arm, Hector Rd. and Kitsuksis. Looks like Vancouver Island north of Victoria got the worst of it with 14,000 people off the grid.
Take Care all.
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Update 6:30PM
Remember to just leave the frontpage open to see the current weather conditions. The page will update automatically every minute. High winds in the almanac every 5 minutes on the fives but I would be surprised if we see anything higher than the 88.5kph we’ve already received.
Lots of flickering lights. I’ve heard some or all at the lake are out. You can check them out at www.bchydro.com
Hope your lights stay on.
End of Update
UPDATE 5:30PM – 88kph Gust
Things are picking up out there. If you get down to the Harbour Quay, be safe, and take a video! 🙂
This should be the peak intensity, at least as forecasted.
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UPDATE 4PM
We just got our first big gust of the day around 56kph. Felt it hit the house.
Got this update from Kat in the comments below. She’s near Bedwell Sound near Tofino.
“Wind switched around to SW in Bedwell Sound about half hour ago, and it’s screaming in here now. wish i had a wind gauge but some of these gusts must be pushing 60 knots [~110kph]. Big Williwaws and small waterspouts all over the place.”
Stay safe out there.
Also reports that Tofino is on a boil water advisory due to the rain.
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Update: 3:00PM Victoria hit with 90kph winds
It’s been crazy everywhere else but Port Alberni. Dangerous snow (thus the updated 12:30PM forecast) in Sutton Pass. Wind in Victoria, the West Coast and East Coast. Ferries cancelled.
We’re still waiting for anything to hit us. I would keep an eye on the wind graphics on victoriaweather.ca. When they veer to the SouthWest is when we can likely expect the wind to pick up here.
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I erred in my last post. The warning is only for winds up to 90kph for us, not 110kph even though the warning indicates that.
It bugs me that they don’t tailor the warnings more for the area they are issued, but I suppose when you only have one or two people doing the forecasts for the 30 or so regions of the province, you have to find efficiencies.
Anyway, the SouthEast winds have already hit Victoria. Courtesy islandweather.ca
It’s blowing about the same in Tofino. The wind should still build in both of those places until they hit 90-100kph gusts.
This afternoon the wind will shift to SouthWest, that’s probably when we will get it as the Southwesterlies seem to funnel up the Inlet a little better.
Either way, we should expect strong winds this afternoon and into the evening.
Finally, here’s a really beautiful graphic I found recently from the University of Wisconsin. It shows total precipitable water in the atmosphere. Watch as the Pineapple Express reaches up towards our region. This is over the past couple weeks. You’ll see it hitting Oregon, where they had major flooding when we were snowy and icy.
Here’s the zoomed in one for our “East Pacific” region.
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20 responses to “Wind Warning Continued — Evening likely.”
The graphics in that map are awesome.
Beautiful – like waves across the Pacific! I have felt the first little breezes here in North Port. Our wind chime only rings when the wind is from the south. Too bad most of it will hit after dark though.
VERY cool graph! You should add that one to the permanent ones!
Outtagoodideas: Great Minds think alike! 🙂 It’s on the Animations page now.
it’s been a terrible week for Sutton Pass. last wednesday morning was bad enough, but i just looked at it now and am quite happy i don’t have to think about driving over it for a few more days yet
no kidding! I was going to take a drive down to watch some good storm action, but changed my mind after looking at the webcam!
Getting some white stuff mixed with the rain
Got some heavy mixed wet snow in the rain here… no wind, yet. Therefore I declare it ‘Mixed bag of precip’ day.
I really thought the snow level would be a few hundred feet lower today, it still might drop a bit more but it doesnt look like there is enough heavy precip left to allow things to accumulate much.
Wind switched around to SW in Bedwell Sound about half hour ago, and it’s screaming in here now. wish i had a wind gauge but some of these gusts must be pushing 60 knots. Big Williwaws and small waterspouts all over the place.
Awesome Kat! We need to get you a wind gauge out there! There are some pretty affordable ones these days!
Without that, you can use the sea to estimate the windspeed using the Beaufort Scale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale
50, 60 or 70knot winds are generally told by the amount of foam stirred up on the water.
Below is a picture of Force 11 (56-63knots, 100-110kph)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Beaufort_scale_11.jpg
Oops! There’s the Wind… just picked up in the past 5 or 10 minutes.
Here it comes… right with the first upward swing of pressure too. Maybe my backup power system will get a workout tonight? I’m good for about 16 hours I think.
Maybe Nick…the lights just dimmed momentarily here in North Port.
Yup, just felt a good gust here 5 minutes ago.
My landlord just texted me… power is out at Sproat Lake. Glad i’m sitting on an 80kW diesel generator with a huge inverter bank. (Chris, i’m not *near* Bedwell Sound, I’m *in* Bedwell Sound. LOL) It sounds like the wind is dying down a bit now… at least, the rain is louder than the wind finally
LOL Kat. 🙂 Are you under the water!? 😉 I debated whether I should say in or near…
I’m at the lake and we had some flickering earlier but no outage. We had a few good gusts but nothing too dramatic.
BC Hydro says 133 people are without power on Stirling Arm. I’m thinking we’ve seen the worst of it pass. No trees down around here in North Port.
Wow. It was a bit wild out here today! A few of those gusts really shook our place! Unfortunately, the power went out around 4pm and I put the network into critical load only mode. Power was back at 6:30pm, but funny thing is, not all of town lost power, only certain parts of it. It is coming down now, though at work we had West 20knts with gusts.