Cliff Mass: Second ‘strong’ windstorm to hit Washington today following deadly ‘bomb cyclone’

As locals are still recovering from this week’s “bomb cyclone” windstorm, many still without power, Cliff Mass, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington (UW), said we’re about to get hit with another strong windstorm. Like on Tuesday night, the windstorm will be localized and winds will be easterly. But there’s one key difference.

“It’s going to be a cyclone. It’ll be a strong one, but it’s not going to be a bomb cyclone. All that means is it’s not going to rev up faster to a certain degree,” Mass explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

Compared to the Tuesday night bomb cyclone, it’ll be weaker. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be weak. And there’s one area it’ll actually be stronger than the bomb cyclone.

“It’ll start off tomorrow morning with strong winds along the foothills again. So it’s going to be kind of a repeat, but much weaker repeat than we had last time. So places like Enumclaw and Black Diamond and North Bend, going out towards Renton and SeaTac, the winds are going to pick up and they’re going to get gusty. It gets up 30-40, miles per hour. So, you know, not that they needed it, but it’s going to be a little bit more of that wind tomorrow morning,” Mass explained.

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Where in Washington will the windstorm the hardest?

Mass said the forecasts shows the windstorm hitting Washington in two steps. The easterly winds will start “down slope on the Cascades, so those foothill communities will pick up wind.” But by noon, they’ll die down. Then, winds along the coast will hit hard.

“In central Puget Sound, it won’t be that bad. But later in the afternoon, early evening, as the low gets close, and this low will be much closer, but it’s much weaker, the winds will really gust up along the coast. And we’re talking about 50 to 70 miles per hour. So it’ll be actually be stronger than last time,” Mass warned.

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Tacoma, Seattle and Everett will be spared the stronger winds, but Mass expects it could hover around 30 miles per hour. But it won’t be big enough to cause a lot of damage.

“I think the main issue is to be damage along the coast, and wind and power outages along the coast. That’ll be the main aspect of this storm,” Mass concluded.

Moisture continues to flow into portions of the West, Great Basin and Rockies with strong winds, lower elevation rain and higher elevation snow. Precipitation will occasionally be heavy with impacts to travel and possible power outages. pic.twitter.com/9J5Ic0fZAY

— National Weather Service (@NWS) November 22, 2024

Update 8 a.m. Nov. 22

The Friday windstorm will unfold in four acts.

The first act happened already, at 1 a.m. Friday morning, when the pressure differences across the region increased. This caused downslope easterly winds to develop along the western slopes of the Cascades, pushing towards Kent and south Seattle.

Act II happened at 7 a.m. Friday when southeasterly winds increased on the coast. Easterly winds hit Seattle and Kent with some gusts reaching 30-35 mph.

Act III will happen at approximately 4 p.m. The winds along the coast will speed up considerably, reaching 50-75 mph. Expect some power outages along the coast. Over the lowlands of western Washington,  wind is expected to reach 30-35 mph around Seattle and 30-45 mph over northwest Washington.

The final act of this storm, Act IV, hits around 10 p.m. Friday night. The wind is expected to rapidly weaken along the coast, but expect some lingering strong wind around the Strait of Georgia and northwest Washington.

Contributing: Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest

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