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Strongest windstorm in West Coast recorded history.

Columbus Day Storm (CDS) Facts. Strongest windstorm in West Coast recorded history. Covered 75,000 square miles from Northern California to Southern British Columbia, lasting up to two hours in any given location. At least 63 direct and indirect deaths. More than 300 serious injuries

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Strongest windstorm in West Coast recorded history.

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  1. Columbus Day Storm (CDS) Facts • Strongest windstorm in West Coast recorded history. • Covered 75,000 square miles from Northern California to Southern British Columbia, lasting up to two hours in any given location. • At least 63 direct and indirect deaths. • More than 300 serious injuries • Some 53,000 homes damaged or destroyed • Total property damage, including tree losses, at least $2 billion and as much as $5 billion.

  2. How CDS Compares to other Famous Storms • The Halloween 1991 “Perfect Storm” of book and movie fame had a low pressure center of 972 millibars off the Atlantic Coast and observed wind gusts of about 70 miles per hour. • The Columbus Day Storm has a central low pressure of 955-960 millibars and wind gusts exceeding 100 mph in multiple locations. • The CDS was larger than Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in August 2005, and had winds comparable of a Katrina-like, Category 3 hurricane. • The CDS had stronger winds than Superstorm Sandy. However, the CDS lacked the lethal storm surges of Katrina and Superstorm Sandy.

  3. Winds gusted at more than 100 miles per hour in at least eight locations.

  4. Why Was the Storm so Strong? • The storm’s low pressure system, which moved south to north, was unusually close to land, positioning the strongest winds over the populated regions of the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound. • The upper atmospheric and surface winds were both blowing from the south, mixing along the front of the storm. • Surface winds were enhanced by the speed of the storm, which moved at 40-50 miles per hour. • Heavy rains in the days prior to the storm saturated the soil and made the trees more vulnerable to wind. • Storms like the Columbus Day Storm go through a cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. When the “Big Blow” made landfall it was in the powerful prime of its life.

  5. Storm-damaged home of Olympia Brewing Co. tour guide Bill Kilde.

  6. Typhoon Freda storm path

  7. Portland meteorologist Jack Capell

  8. Wind-blown storefront in Newport, Ore

  9. The collapse of the Campbell Hall bell tower at Oregon College of Education. 

  10. Oregon State Hospital Superintendent Dr. Dean Brooks

  11. The Mount Hebo Air Force radar station was torn apart by the winds. 

  12. Fallen trees, including these at the Siuslaw National Forest on Oregon coast, totaled enough timber to frame one million homes.

  13. Tree damage from the Columbus Day Storm was three times the volume of timber lost in the May 1980 explosion of Mount St. Helens. Mount St. Helens after the storm in 1962

  14. Small planes like these two at the Kelso Airport in Southwest Washington were tossed around like toys.

  15. Damage Scenes Flattened car in Portland Salem statue toppled by winds Van Buren Bridge in Corvallis

  16. What happened to Charley Brammer?

  17. What would happen if CDS struck the Pacific Northwest today? • On the plus side, we would have three-to-five days advance notice – instead of just hours ‑ due to advances in weather forecasting. • On the minus side, the region’s population has near tripled in size since 1962, putting millions more people in harm’s way. • The built environment has expanded dramatically, raising the possibility of property damage in the tens of billions of dollars. • Our dependence on technology, including cell-phones and computers, would lead to crippling power and communications breakdowns.

  18. What About Climate Change? • Research does not suggest the Pacific Northwest is seeing stronger and more frequent non-tropical windstorms in the past 65 years and computer modeling does not indicate more frequent and intense CDS-type storms in the future. • The jet stream, the main transport vehicle for mighty windstorms in our region is expected to shift northwards. Perhaps more activity in Washington and B.C. and less in Oregon. • The Arctic region is warming more rapidly than the mid-latitude regions, which reduces the extreme differences in temperatures that fuel cyclones in the north Pacific Ocean. • That said, a storm as powerful as the Columbus Day Storm could be in our future.

  19. Thank You. Questions?

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