COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE (KATU) — Hammering winds at Crown Point did not stop some from catching a good view high above the Columbia River Gorge on Wednesday.
“I was just up the stairs here and nearly got blown away and had to hold on to the rail to brace myself,” Matthew Stuck told KATU.
The longtime resident of Troutdale, who now lives in New York, said he has never experienced the strong winds that tore through Crown Point.
It is not where people are recommended to be the next couple of days, as a KATU crew spotted wind gusts reaching nearly 60 mph.
Forecasters warn these conditions can cause trees and power lines to fall, resulting in possible outages.
Winds gusts as high as 60 mph can also cause visibility issues and increases the chance of bone-chilling temperatures in what already is an unseasonably cold time for the year.
Temperatures earlier in the week in The Dalles plunged into the teens, breaking a nearly 45-year record.
“Tuesday morning was 16 and that breaks the old record, which was 19, which was set in 1981,” Larry Nierenberg, lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Pendleton said.
A KATU crew found walls of icicles.
“It tends to happen every one or two years where we’ll see this cooler air mass settle in anywhere from a couple of days to a week,” Daniel Hartsock, meteorologist at NWS Portland, told KATU.
Meanwhile, business is brewing at Thunder Island in Cascade Locks, where many are welcoming the winter weather.
“Everybody comes in and says, ‘hi.’ Nobody’s going to work. So, it’s kind of like a fun time of the year,” Thunder Island Brewing Co. owner David Lipps said.
