FERNDALE, Wash. — According to weather forecasters, a low-pressure system passing northward offshore created the potentially damaging winds along Vancouver Island and the BC mainland down into the Puget Sound region and western Washington coast yesterday, November 17th.
The following were among the maximum gusts being reported in and near the Ferndale area by the National Weather Service as of 4:30pm yesterday.
| Location | Maximum Gust | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Sandy Point Shores | 67mph | 10:19am |
| Ferndale | 60mph | 11:32am |
| Bellingham International Airport | 56mph | 11:53am |
An 81mph gust was reported at 7am on Destruction Island, located 4 miles offshore west of the Olympic Peninsula.
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Click for more informationThe windstorm was relatively short-lived in the Ferndale area as indicated by the following time graph.
Winds began picking up about 8:30am after the wind direction flipped quickly from northerly to southerly. Gusts over 40mph were reported between approximately 9am and 2pm.
Puget Sound Energy reported thousands were without power around the Puget Sound area including hundreds in Whatcom County. But the Ferndale area saw only a few localized outages with the largest impacting about 30 PSE customers around the Lake Terrell area after 2 power poles fell across Mountain View Road about 10:30am.
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Click for more informationThe downed power lines and poles resulted in closing both lanes of Mountain View Road between Elder Road and N Star Road for much of the day.
Some panels were reported blocking Douglas Road and there were occasional reports of small trees needing to be removed from roadways but no significant damage during the windstorm was reported.
There were concerns about the first of the King Tides this season occurring during this windstorm. But there were no reports of shoreline flooding or property damage.