> All is ok here, but that poor fence. I am interested in finding out the
>direction this storm was travelling in. It seems to have hit here before it
>hit tweeterland (correct?) so does that mean it came in from the south?

It came from a westerly direction as do so many of our fronts. This
one was big to start with, but took a left turn and ran up the
coast, allowing it to continue to grow in strength rather than
battering itself to bits onshore.

I think that San Francicso was about as far south as any serious
damage occured.

Comparisons were made to the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, the largest
known storm in the PNW and a lot of fun, to be honest. When you're
eight years old, their ain't nothin' like watching 18" doug fir
trees in your front yard bow at the waist for hours without breaking!
Actually, one uprooted, bounced off our log house, and flattened
our porch like the proverbial 'possum. It hit the roof just over
my head. As you can imagine, I've had a lifelong interest in this
storm!

Yesterday's storm actually had lower lows in the center than the "big
one", though not by much. However, the weather service points out that
this storm was much bigger and spread out from BC to Baja, thus the
energy was dissipated a bit. TV had some good satellite shots,
and the center vortice was relatively small but drawing in air
from all over in kind of an oval shape. The Columbus Day storm,
according to the weather service guy, physically was more like
a hurricane in shape as well as wind levels.

The big difference, though, was that the Columbus Day storm
ran closer inshore (I have one old map showing it running
parallel to the coast from about Eureka to BC) so winds in
the Willamette Valley were a lot higher, causing a lot more
damage (something like 35 dead in CA/OR/WA). The weather
service representative claimed the Columbus Day storm actually
ran up the Willamette (which I've heard elsewhere, too) but
that may be revisonism at work. Storms usually begin to
die once the low comes ashore, and the Columbus Day storm
had stamina, there's no doubt of that! The chart I have
showing it slightly offshore comes from the BPA.

During the Columbus Day storm, Portland had sustained winds
in the range of 60+ MPH and gusts over 100 MPH as measured
on a bridge over the Willamette.

The biggest gust yesterday in PDX was measured at the airport,
at 61 MPH. Average winds were more like mid-40s in most of
town. A mere fart. Much worst at the Coast. During the Columbus
Day storm, winds here were about the same as along the Coast.

Also, there was very little warning of the Columbus Day
storm. No satellites. Ships at sea and weatherships didn't
pick it up soon enough or often enough to accurately track it,
as I understand the situation, and it took the same kind
of radical left turn as yesterday's. A lot of people really
didn't know it was coming until it hit, particularly in northern
CA/southern OR.

Since we don't name these storms, unlike hurricanes, it
will be impossible to sex it even though each of us probably
felt a bit trapped and constrained by it yesterday :)

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>