jeremy_wheeler's Blog

Yesterday, we had some amazing winds.  Winds gusted up to almost 60mph in Norfolk and around Oregon Inlet.  We had a couple thousand people without power.  Two of my weather watchers Don in Toano and Doris on the Lower Eastern Shore mentioned that they've haven't seen winds like that before.  Even with the big systems that have moved through in the past.  They were strong sustained winds, but the gusts were very impressive.   

I believe that if we had leaves on the trees, then we would have seen widespread power outages and trees down.  Leaves will allow the wind to push more on the tree, whereas wind can travel easily around sticks and branches.  Needled trees are an exception here because there are so many bunched together.   And we did have some trees down so maybe that's why.  Still it could have been worse. 

The reason for the strong wind.  A strong departing low and a high pressure area moving in.  This allowed for what we call a strong pressure gradient force.  A big difference in pressure over a relatively small distance.  It gets the winds going.