A huge, deep midlatitude cyclone is parked off our coast right now, with very strong winds over the Pacific and large easterly flow in the Columbia Gorge, the Strat of Juan de Fuca, and within east-west passes in the Cascades.
The sea level pressure forecast for 1 PM is impressive and huge, with the low center spread over much of the NE Pacific, with a deep 974 hPa low center due west of the CA/OR border.
The latest visible satellite image illustrates the large scale of the storm, a very long cold front, and the cold, unstable air circling into the low center.
The moisture imagery (white showing lots of upper tropospheric water vapor) shows the vast amount of water vapor spiraling into the storm.
This large pressure gradient associated with the storm is producing strong winds over the ocean, with gust forecasts over the ocean show areas reaching 40-70 mph at 1 PM today.
As the low slowly drift towards us, the strong winds will reach the Oregon/Washington coastline (see gust forecast for 10 AM Wednesday).
A huge, slow-moving storm has strong winds, lots of fetch, and plenty of time for the wind to work on the water. The result are big waves, something predicted by the NOAA WaveWatch3 system: (9-11 meters high shown by orange colors below)
With a low offshore and higher pressure offshore, local winds are accelerating from east to west in our regional gaps. For example, winds are quite strong in the Strait of Juan de Fuca (see forecast for 1 PM below).
And easterly winds are accelerating over the western side of the Columbia Gorge:
from Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog http://bit.ly/2FgR1a2
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