Strong north-northeast winds continue to batter the area this morning and the National Weather Service has extended their High Wind Warning to 9am today.
Wind gusts driven by the Fraser Valley outflow have been recorded at a weather station near Ferndale High School between 40 and 50mph since 11am yesterday. A few gusts nearer 60mph had been recorded.
Several hundred people faced a night without power last night as Puget Sound Energy (PSE) estimates for restoring power began getting pushed into the morning hours. PSE crews worked to restore power at several local outages impacting nearly 2000 PSE customers in Whatcom County and over 1500 in Skagit County.
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Click for more informationThere were a few scattered outages remaining this morning including one in an area south of Lake Terrell in west Ferndale and another along Seacrest Drive on Lummi Island. Both have been blamed on equipment failures according to PSE. Both are expected to have power restored in the next few hours.
Besides the outages, there were only a few instances of trees and poles down in roadways or into houses. In one instance, a large branch fell into the traffic lanes on Main Street west of Douglas Road. No reports of injuries or damage.
Forecasters expect “winds will diminish slowly early this morning… then ease more quickly late this morning.”