December 29, 1990: Saturday

08:57 HRS: Come to Seattle and find Pocatello weather. This morning, which is clear and clam, temps dropped to near record lows behind yesterday's arctic cold front. SeaTac hit 12º F, Everett 8º F, Tacoma 2º F and Olympia 5º F. Eastern Washington is -5º to -15º F with Yakima braking a 1968 record of -10º with -12º at 04:30 this morning.

The front did not bring in much snow--only an inch here at Capitol Hill, but up to 6" in places north such as central Skagit County and places east like Maple Valley. What the front did bring is wind and waves out of the north--a direction both trees and humans are not very used to. Peak gusts were around 45 mph and SeaTac, 60 mph at Alki Point, 63 at Bellingham and 70 mph+ in the Hood Canal. There were unofficial reports of 90 mph in some locations of the Central Sound.

Trees that were shaped, or had shaped themselves, for strong south to southwest winds found a force from a different direction. The north end of Vashon Island fell apart. Trees crashed on houses, lines for telephone and power, and on cars. One woman was killed as a multiple of trees crushed the car she was in. These scenes were repeated in West Seattle parks, Anacortes, and other shoreline locations. Waves destroyed old shoreline abutments and seawalls. One on Vashon Island came down and threatened the destruction of four houses. One house had its floor drop out from under it.

Last month I arrived to floods, this month snow and high winds (by the way, wind chill was at ­45º in Anacortes with a temp of 5º F yesterday morning). My timing was perfect. 09:40 HRS.

January 2, 1991: Wednesday

09:44 HRS: I went on a drive down to Maple Valley and then to north Tacoma. From that point, I drove northward up the Puget Sound coastline. This was yesterday, the 1st.

This was an inspection of the wind damage from the northerly whole gale of December 27 & 28, 1990. I had my camera and put on film some of the damage which I discovered.

Along the shoreline of Lake Washington trees were down here and there as were numerous branches. I saw a couple of trees snapped at Seward Park, one a tall Douglas-fir. There was also a huge and healthy pine that lay uprooted by the gale at the top of the hill. The most interesting damage was where the salvaged Lacey V. Marrow floating bridge spans [some of which sank in November, breaking the bridge apart] were anchored. Three giant madrona trees were uprooted and tossed into the shoreline water. The trees were used as anchors for the bridge spans, for cables were wrapped around the trees' bases. Strong wave action probably moved the heavy bridge spans and this pulled the trees down. Just south of this site was another interesting tree-fall. A lombardy poplar about 4' thick uprooted and fell across Lake Washington Boulevard. When I saw it, it was already sawed apart and moved out of the road. It was still a spectacular site, though.

The Renton, Maple Valley, Auburn area suffered little damage from the wind. This is because the dense, cold air was reduced considerably in speed by ground friction (trees, structures, hills) not far inland. Only those areas along exposed shorelines were hit hard. For example, when I climbed up into northeast Tacoma, I started seeing the damage again--broken trees and carpets of twigs and branches.

A lot of Federal Way was hit hard. I saw four locations that had trees (usually a Douglas-fir) hit powerlines intermixed with trees that slapped across the road. Some yards looked like lumber mills, so many trees came down. One shed was smashed by a Doug near a yard that lost three of the pseudo-firs. I also ran into sections of road that were a solid rug of Douglas-fir twigs.

Even on the shoreline, heavy damage was quite localized. One spot had dozens of trees down, and a few bends in the road later, there was little or no damage. I suspect those places exposed to north winds were the ones hit hardest. Interestingly, these are the places sheltered from the great southerly storms.

Places in Des Moines looked like scenes from the past--back to the great Columbus Day Storm of October 12, 1962. I saw the destroyed road at Redondo Beach where waves washed the roadbed completely away in some spots. Most of the beach was also gone. Further north, one little cove was a shambles. Six or severn large Douglas-firs were down--most uprooted, one snapped. Three of these trees fell on houses--two on one, crushing part of the roof, and the last one whipped onto the top of an old house nestled in trees, damaging the roof also and shattering windows. The feel of a crumbling forest was enhanced by all the branches and twigs lying about. No doubt these people had a wild time.

West Seattle was also hit hard in spots. This contrasted sharply with the Sea-Tac area, which only had occasional trees down despite gusts to 45 mph at the airport. I'd have to say Lincoln Park was the most memorable. As I drove up from south to north on Fauntleroy, it looked like the park suffered little damage. There was a bough here and a lonely twig there, but I could not see any trees down. Until I reached the north end of the park. That part of the coastal woodlot fell completely apart. Douglas-firs up to 3' in diameter uprooted or snapped, some piling on top of each other. Intermixed was a western red cedar or two and some larches [Atlas cedars]. It looked like a lumbering operation had come through there. This was so spectacular, that I am going back today to get some pictures of this (it was dark when I got there at 16:30 HRS). 10:29 HRS.

January 5, 1991: Saturday

09:34 HRS: This entry is to update damage from the December 28, 1990 northerly gale. It turns out a lot of parks were really cleaned out. Discovery Park, which I visited on the 3rd, had some significant tree damage but it wasn't hit as bad as others. Forty trees were reportedly lost there. Other park losses go as follows: Lincoln Park 90 trees down, the Seattle Arboretum 100 trees, and Point Defiance Park lost a whopping 400+ trees. The Arboretum lost mainly rare ornamentals that aren't as tolerant of northwest weather as the natives are. The other parks had most of the damage on their north sides, as should be expected.

Peak gusts were not very high, showing that north winds do not have to be very strong to do significant damage, for the trees become "used" to the predominant south wind (they develop [asymmetrical root systems] in response to it and subsequently become "weaker" to north winds). Sea-Tac peaked at 46 mph, Tacoma 47 mph. The Hood Canal Bridge did at least 68 mph, with Bangor at 59 mph. Bellingham peaked at 63 mph.