Tuesday night and Wednesday are the calm before the storm. Last night ( Monday) I was hedging my bets about a wind and rain event for the the Oregon and Washington Coast. Today looks like things are lining up for a pretty good wind storm on the coast. The storm is part of old tropical depression Ling-Ling and is still over 1000 miles away from making landfall in the Pacific Northwest.

Thursday, morning the storm is pulling up near the mouth of the Columbia River. Through the morning the storm will work its way north coming ashore near the Aberdeen, Washington. It's forecasted to be around 977mb that's about 28.85 inches hg. when it makes landfall. We'll see peak winds on the north and central Oregon Coast at or above freeway speeds.

Inland winds will be much less, the Willamette Valley could see speeds approaching 45mph. That's strong enough to bring some branches down onto powerlines and moves trash cans down neighborhood streets. There's been some talk about 50 to 60 mph winds near the gorge. Right now computer models aren't supporting that. The MM5 GFS model from U of W are suggesting surface winds about 35mph with some higher gusts possible. That may change as the storm track becomes more refined.

Either way this looks like the first good wind event of the season. As the storm gets closer and computer models refine it's track and strength I'll keep up you updated.

Regards
Dave