Destructive Wind

Today has been an adventure. We live on a hill in northwest Reno, just east of the entry way into California. My house faces to the south, with western exposed walls. It is typical for this time of year to get some high wind gusts trending from the northwest. But today was the worst I have ever seen after living here for almost 30 years. The winds were coming from the west. My neighbor is a meterologist and he said that the winds clocked out at his house at between 70 and 85 mph - severe storm to hurricane force winds at around 2pm. I have two heavy barbeques on my deck (yeah, I really like to barbeque), and both were down with their covers in tatters. Trees and powerlines are down in the area. I watched as someone's shed blew apart then blew away. A massive pine tree fell on top on a house just a few doors away.

This shot was taken outside my house, looking down the hill at two pine tress that are over 100 feet tall. I tried as best as I could to line up vertically on the vertical wall of my house (out of picture). I have never seen them as bowed by the wind. And, truthfully, I wasn't going to venture out for more. The wind was deafening inside on our upstairs level. I was getting a little concerned about one of the walls in our bedroom. It seemed to be "creaking" with the higher wind gusts. And that wall has 6 large windows and a sliding glass door.

I believe that the northwest part of Reno got the brunt of the storm. Although there were high winds in the south and southwest parts of town, they did not get the record breaking gusts that we did. This evening it is a bit calmer, although we are still experiencing 40-50 mph gusts. And the weather service says it is supposed to subside to calm by 4am. We are still planning to leave for Southern California tomorrow, driving along the Eastern Sierras. And we really hope that the winds will be calm by then.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday.