WeatherWatcher: From the archives - Christmas Day Wind 2011, and Today's forecast

Carport damaged by fallen tree in the Echo Lake Neighborhood, December 25, 2011
Photo by Carl Dinse

This week from the archives I bring to you a Christmas Day windstorm. Eight years ago a forecasted but stronger than expected windstorm blew through Shoreline and Lake Forest Park right about noon on Christmas Day. Winds were recorded gusting in the Shoreline area around 40mph, but other exposed areas in the region saw gusts as high as 60mph.

In one corner of the Echo Lake Neighborhood not far from the Northridge/Echo Lake Shoreline weather station a tree came crashing down onto a carport. The vehicle parked under the carport appeared to be spared from any damage; the carport did its job.

I was doing weather reports even then for Shoreline Area News. You can find my original article on the storm, and the forecast that week here: WeatherWatcher: Christmas Day storm signals end of dry spell. We also had a follow-up article: Stories from the Christmas Day wind storm.

Today's Forecast: Don't be surprised if you see some light snow or snow mixed with rain late Thursday night or early Friday morning. It's marginal and just cold enough to produce the wintery mix but the weather system bringing the moisture is warm. We should warm up Friday morning into the low 40's with rain changing over to showers in the afternoon.

Saturday brings chances of rain, with increasing steady rain Saturday night and rain on Sunday. We get a slight break on Monday with mostly sunny skies before our next rainy weather system moves in Tuesday lasting through New Year's morning.

Longer range: Looking at a mostly wet and seasonable pattern for the first few days of the new year, but further out looks like we might run colder than normal. There's even some early hints we might see our first accumulating snow event of the season before the middle of January. The uncertainty of forecasts that far ahead, however is really high. Forecasts struggle with snow of any amount here even if it's as close as 6 hours away. It's probably a good idea to get ready for snow in the next two weeks, just in case.

For current weather conditions visit www.shorelineweather.com