Winds

The winds have really picked up forced by a strong north-south pressure gradient and the mixing of high momentum air from aloft. Take a look at my favorite plot...the seattle profiler (I know its not pretty...all I got!). Temperatures above us have warmed immensely....14C (57F) right above the surface. Its 52 at my building. And very strong winds from the SW are aloft....the profiler shows 50 knot (58 mph) at 400 m (roughly 1300ft) above the surface. Sustained winds of 35 knots have been observed over the water and 20-25 knots over land (knot is 1.15 mph). Gusts are higher of course. The NWS did forecast strong winds...although not quite this strong. I am sure there will be some power outages.


Legend: height in meters, time in GMT increasing from right to left. Red lines are temperature in C.