The wind storm arrived today, August 29th, just as forecasted and was everything and more than expected.
A couple gusts of 63MPH were recorded by a personal weather station located by the high school just after 11:30am. Gusts in the 40-55MPH range have been frequent since 9:30am and continue as of the time of this story, 1pm. This all follows the first significant rainfall in the area for months (0.34″).
The result of the ferocious winds has been multiple reports of trees down, power outages and road closures, including a tree down on I-5.
Puget Sound Energy reported that Island, Skagit and Whatcom Counties had approximately 9200 80,000 customers without power. In and around Ferndale, over 3000 PSE customers were affected as numerous outages were reported on both sides of I-5.
Today was to be the all-day Ferndale Street Festival. But organizers realized it was time to pack up and plan for next year when the tent covering the main stage started moving around. The Muds to Suds obstacle course race was even canceled later in the day. According to their spokesperson, debris and branches falling from the trees made it unsafe to continue (see pics below).
Pictures from around town (feel free to contribute yours):
