On December 11, 1995, a large low pressure storm approached the southern Oregon-northern California coast and began to slow and deepen. Its central pressure at sea level began to drop precipitously, and the National Weather Service began to issue high wind warnings for the coast and the inland valleys. Later that day, very high winds struck California, knocking down trees as far south as the Bay Area.
On the morning of the 12th, the area of highest winds reached the Oregon coast as the low, still offshore, moved northward. Late that morning, Sea Lion Caves near Florence topped out at 119 mph before problems developed with the anemometer (no wonder!). In Newport, a gust of 107 mph occurred downtown, while Astoria and Cape Blanco also had gusts of over 100 mph. Astoria's air pressure dropped as low as 28.53 inches, an all-time record (and comparable to the central pressure of a Category 2 hurricane!). Gusts in the Willamette Valley exceeded 60 mph. Hundreds of thousands were without power, there was widespread damage to homes, buildings, and boats, and four citizens lost their lives.
Roger Cunningham is a consultant who lives in Florence and maintains a home weather station and impeccable records. I'll let Roger describe what happened: The wind, of course, was the big story. In my three years with a good anemometer, I'd never exceeded 36 mph-- until about 9:45 AM on Tuesday, when the wind reached 37. Just after 10 a.m. it gusted to 42. The morning began with light winds, but I knew what was coming. When the electricity failed at 10:30 AM my instrument went on battery power, so I had to keep the display blank most of the time to conserve battery. I checked the peak gust occasionally, and had a gust to 45 mph around noon and the biggest of all, 48 mph, just after 2 p.m.. This peak level was very puny (fortunately!) compared to most of the coast, because I'm 2.5 mi inland in a protected area. The local cable TV office had a gust to about 85 mph 2 mi SSW of me. Sea Lion Caves, on a very exposed headland 250 ft in elevation about 8 mi NNW of me had a 119 mph gust. Newport, 50 mi N, gusted to 107 mph, and North Bend AP, 50 mi S, gusted to 86 mph.
The very wet soil following an unusually rainy fall caused many large trees to topple over. In the Willamette Valley, it appeared that there were more trees uprooted than snapped above ground. After foresters assess the damage in remote areas, we expect that very large losses of standing timber will be reported.
Many people have asked how this storm compared with big wind events in the past. Although damage reports are not yet complete, it seems safe to say that the December storm was less intense than the October 1962 "Columbus Day Storm," the granddaddy of all Oregon wind storms. Although coastal wind velocities were similar, inland winds were much lower in the recent storm. For example, winds were measured at 116 mph on the Morrison Street Bridge in Portland in the 1962 storm, while maximum gusts in the area in the 1995 storm were probably 70- 80 mph. Twenty-three Oregonians died in the 1962 storm, four in 1995. More comparable to this storm were several other big wind events which have struck Oregon in the last 20 years. These include storms in February, 1979; November, 1981; and January, 1990. Four comparable storms in 20 years suggests that the current storm was about a 5-year event (although establishing return periods for such extreme cases is tenuous at best). As I said to an Oregonian newspaper reporter: "this wasn't the storm of the century, nor perhaps even the storm of the decade, but it was certainly the storm of the year." Of that, at least, we can be certain.