Weather or Not: Chris Burns
Update Friday: 9:30pm
The wind is slowly but steadily increasing this evening. Currently, at 9:30pm, the southwest breeze is fairly constant at 30-35 mph and peak gusts are around 40. Lincoln City’s top gust so far is 31 mph, Newport 40 mph, and Yachats just took one a few minutes ago at 47 mph. Seas are climbing and have just passed 16 feet. They’ll be much higher tomorrow and are expected to top out at 30 feet by nightfall.
The High Wind Warning for gusts to 75 mph on the beaches and headlands, and 60 mph in Central Coast communities is still in effect, and will remain so until tomorrow night. It should be pointed out that the high winds will come and go over the next 24 hours. While the strongest are forecast between midnight tonight and early tomorrow morning, they’re predicted to come back up once, maybe twice, again during the day and evening on Saturday. Gusts tomorrow may still approach 60 mph at times.
The High Surf Warning goes into effect at 4:00pm Saturday afternoon, but beaches are already becoming dangerous with larger waves in the mix, and of course the howling winds.
We’ll have a full report in Weather or Not at 8:00am. In the meantime, grab a good book, sit back and listen to the wind howl.