WeatherWatcher: High Wind Watch has been issued

The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a high wind watch in effect for the entire region late Friday morning through Friday evening. A high wind watch means there is the potential for a hazardous high wind event, with sustained winds of at least 40 mph or gusts of at least 58 mph.

There is a powerful Pacific storm developing off of the Northern California coast / southern Oregon coast. Earlier models were showing it would remain too far west, north and small to initially give us the really strong winds.

Today's models now show it is expected to have a much larger in diameter low center and the tracking is slightly further east, putting us in a stronger zone of the storm if it moves and develops as projected.

Strong wind storms and convergence zone snow storms, though rare, are not out of the question as late as April for our area. The expected strength of this wind storm, however, is more typical of a November or December storm system.

What is expected: I'm going to say there is about a 50% chance that this storm will develop and track in favor of this wind watch.

If such conditions develop, winds are expected to peak around the early afternoon hours of Friday with sustained winds from 20-40mph, and gusts up to 60mph might be possible.

Power outages are possible and weak trees or trees in saturated soils could be knocked over with these winds.

In general late season wind storms here don't do as much damage because most of the trees have been pruned by earlier season windstorms and we haven't had our spring and summer growth season yet.

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