The Wind~It Is Blowing

I only got a "wind advisory" in my daily weather email, last night. But this morning it was changed to a "wind warning" and by golly they were right!  It's blowing out there and it actually woke me up about 5am.  I was going to run some errands today, but think I'll just hang in here at home.  There's so much stuff blowing around out there and with it being a holiday, the kids are out of school and a lot of people have the day off....so I imagine there are plenty of people out there on the road.  I can wait until tomorrow. 

The big old cedar tree out in my front yard is really taking a beating.  I hope it's still upright at days end.  I know for sure, there will be no leaves left on any of the trees when this storm is over.

Here's the weather email that I found waiting for me this morning;

Dear Linda,

Updated Monday 3:46 a.m. A strong storm is forecast to move through Western Washington Today, bringing a dose of heavy rain and gusty winds to most of the region. Tonight will still be relatively calm, with mostly cloudy skies and breezy winds to 20 mph or so. Lows will be in the mid 40s. What's The Timeline? -- As usual with windstorms, the coast gets the wind first, then the Northwest Interior (basically a box from Everett west to Port Townsend, stretching north to the Canadian border, including San Juan, Whidbey, and Camano Islands.), then finally the Puget Sound region. Coast: Begin Time: 3-7 a.m.; End Time of strongest winds: 1-4 p.m. Duration of peak winds: 7-9 hours. The coast will be the first to see the winds as the storm approaches the coastline. South wind of 30-40 mph with gusts as high as 70 mph are possible. Winds will drift to the southwest and then ease through late Monday afternoon and evening. Northwest Interior: Begin Time: 5-8 a.m.; End Time: 1-2 p.m. Duration of peak winds: 5-7 hours. The Northwest Interior spots get a southeast wind as the storm center passes offshore north of the Strait of Juande Fuca and then tracks across Vancouver Island. The winds might be in the 20-30 mph range earlier in the day, but will pick up to the 30-40 mph gusting to 60 mph range sometime between 7-10 a.m. and then taper off in the mid afternoon as the storm passes due north of the area. Puget Sound Area / Southwest Washington: Begin Time: 9:00am-Noon.; End time- 1-4 p.m. Duration of peak winds: 3 hours or so. The Puget Sound area is the last to get the wind, having to wait until the storm center crosses due north of the area. (The Olympic Mountains protect this area from the southeast winds that the Northwest Interior gets earlier in the day, as the mountains provide a wall between Puget Sound and the storm center.) Here, we're expecting south winds of 25-35 mph, gusting to 40-50 mph. That's enough to cause some scattered power outages, knock over trees and make driving across the 520 Bridge oh so fun. In October's storm, the 520 Bridge managed to stay open despite occasional gusts over 50 mph, while the Hood Canal Bridge did have to close for several hours. We could see a repeat of that on Monday. Winds will gradually decrease through Monday evening and night, as rain changes to showers, then decrease. We actually calm down quite a bit for Tuesday with showers in the morning then tapering off for the afternoon. Long range forecasts show a return to generally wet and breezy conditions through the end of the week. The storms will pack a good dose of rain, but not as much wind -- jut the usual 20-30 mph stuff. The wettest periods appear to be Wednesday evening/night; Thursday evening/night; and during the day on next Saturday. In between, we'll see scattered showers. High temperatures through the period will be around 50. more...

Sincerely, KOMO 4 Weathercaster Jim Castillo And on that note, I'm going to sign off and go get something done around here.  Linda