The central Oregon coast was mostly spared the so-called “bomb cyclone” that damaged northern California and the Seattle area this week, but that doesn’t mean the late fall storms are over.
The National Weather Service has issued a high wind watch for the central coast for most of Friday, forecasting that south winds could reach up to 60 mph.
“Sustained wind speeds of at least 40 mph or gusts of 58 mph or more are possible,” the NWS statement said, warning that they could cause property damage.
And, the weather service says, up to another inch of rain will return to add to the record totals the central coast has already seen this month.
Although public school activities were cancelled Tuesday night because of the storm threat and many other activities called off, the central coast was spared the brunt of the unusual storm that swamped northern California with rain and winds that toppled trees, killed two people and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands in the Seattle area.
While the Central Lincoln People’s Utility District prepared for the worst, most of the outages reported Tuesday night – 29 outages affecting 1,375 customers — were in the south end of its service area that stretches from Lincoln Beach to North Bend.
Brian Fowler, who oversees state parks from Newport to Yachats, said his crews were not seeing exceptional beach erosion so far this season, despite the heavy weather.
“I find that each year is unique in itself,” said Fowler, who has worked in coastal parks for 18 years. “But so far we’re not seeing anything bad like excessive sand scalping or movement.”
This week’s deluge comes on top of an already wet month, according to weather watchers for YachatsNews.
Jim Adler, who lives three miles up the Yachats River, has recorded 14.55 inches of rain in November as of Wednesday night – including 2.37 inches of rain Tuesday. His total for the first 20 days of November is higher than his 16-year average for the month and greater than 12 of his 16 previous complete November totals.
Adler’s year-to-date rain total is 97.08 inches, which is already greater than 10 of his 16 year-end totals.
Don Tucker, who lives two miles north of Yachats and has been recording weather data for 17 years, measured 13.85 inches of rain so far this month — surpassing his record high of 13.29 inches for all of November 2017.
The gauge at the Yachats wastewater treatment plant has measured 12.54 inches of rain so far in November and 68.58 inches so far this year. The station’s 10-year average for the full month of November is 10.58 inches.
The height of the Alsea River at Tidewater peaked at more than 11 feet Wednesday – nearly triple its Saturday height – but was dropping rapidly Thursday and nowhere near its flood stage of 18 feet.
Information from Central Lincoln Peoples Utility District
- To report a power outage or other emergency, call CLPUD at (877) 265-3211.
- For ways to be prepared for outages go here
- For a map of current outages go here
- Central Lincoln’s Facebook page go here
- To see a video showing how CLPUD restores outages go here
I wonder if anyone can answer this. These two recent storms basically brushed the central Oregon coast with minimal problems compared with say, Northern California or the Seattle area. Yet, my memory as an Oregon native is that the Newport area has always been the windiest part of the coast, at least during summers. Those winds are usually north winds. The recent storms produced largely south winds.
So my question is why, if we’re normally such a windy place, did a set of storms with high wind warnings barely bother us?