209 mph wind gust recorded in California on Sunday

9 Feb 2020, 2:19 pm

Talk about a windy Sunday in California.

While strong winds howled throughout the Golden State on Sunday, a 209 miles-per-hour (mph) gust was recorded atop Kirkwood Mountain in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range. While the gust will undergo quality checks over the next few days, two National Weather Service offices reported it on Sunday.

That said, the National Weather Service office in Sacramento sprinkled doubt on the figure on Sunday night (read the bottom of the Twitter thread below).

After further review the 209 mph wind gust reported at Kirkwood seems less likely, as the station seems to have multiple errors including 92 percent relative humidity during the strong winds. Also the wind seem to have been unusually strong the past few days at this station.

— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) February 9, 2020

If verified, this would become California’s strongest wind gust ever recorded, according to the Sacramento Bee. The current record is a 199 mph gust in Alpine Meadows from February 2017. More checks will go into the statistic this week.

Kirkwood now gusting 209 MPH! This could potentially be a new California state record wind speed if verified! https://t.co/WeWzntYjLt

— NWS Reno (@NWSReno) February 9, 2020

Here are some of the latest wind gust reports across the region. The highest observation on the list will require some further investigation! Gusty winds will continue into the night with breezy conditions likely to start off Monday morning. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/UkAdhu1NWm

— NWS Sacramento (@NWSSacramento) February 9, 2020

Kirkwood Mountain Resort has several peaks topping 9,000 feet in elevation, making it wind-prone. Several other gusts on Sunday topped 150 mph at the station. The 209 mph observation site sits at 9,186 feet in elevation.

The resort closed on Sunday morning in response due to the strong winds.

https://twitter.com/KirkwoodMTN/status/1226579473438371840?s=20

It wasn’t just California’s high terrain feeling the impacts of the wind, however. Nearly 150,000 customers were without power as of Sunday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us. Most of those power outages were clustered around the Bay Area, where a wind gust of 53 mph was recorded in Oakland and several 40-plus mph gusts were observed on Sunday.

Winds should taper somewhat overnight Sunday into Monday, although it will remain breezy across most of California on Monday and Tuesday.

About the author

Chris Bianchi

Chris doesn't remember a time when that he didn't love the weather. When he was five years old, he wrote his first words, "Partly cloudy", in Ms. Benn's kindergarten class. According to Chris, it's been a love affair ever since, from teaching himself how to read forecast models at age 12, to landing at WeatherNation. Growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, he started to go after his lifelong drea... Load Morem of becoming a meteorologist by predicting whether or not there would be snow days - turning him into Greenwich High School's "defacto weatherman". He turned that snow day-predicting website into a front page story a local newspaper, which in turn earned him a look at WABC-TV in New York, where Chris did the weather live on-air at the age of 16. He attended Boston University, where he continued being a "weather nerd", performing weather updates on the campus radio and TV stations, and doing the daily forecasts for the student newspaper. Following his studies at BU, Chris worked at Mile High Sports and ESPN Denver for four years while pursuing his certification in Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University. Chris is a huge sports fan, rooting for the Rockies, Nuggets, Broncos, Avalanche and UConn. He frequently find links between sports and weather, including an investigative analysis he did in 2013, finding trends between Peyton Manning's play and game time temperature (he doesn't like the cold). Chris also enjoys running, playing any sport, socializing and periodically overeating at all-you-can-eat buffets.