Wind gusts reportedly hit 209 mph in California. Is the speed a record – or an error?
Wind gusts reportedly surpassed 200 miles per hour on a particularly windy Sunday morning near Kirkwood, according to the National Weather Service — possibly setting a new record for California amid doubts of the report’s veracity.
Sacramento-area NWS forecaster Karleisa Rogacheski confirmed that an observation site in the Sierra Nevada recorded a gust of 209 mph at 7:45 a.m. amid widespread windy conditions in the region.
The last major wind speed record in the state was set in February 2017, when winds reached 199 mph at the Alpine Meadows ski resort.
Rogacheski said the 2017 record was the last recorded in NWS archives.
The Sacramento NWS office said on Twitter that it would be double checking the report for any possible calibration errors, and by Sunday afternoon, the weather agency was hedging its bets, saying that the report was probably erroneous.
“No doubt they had strong winds at that site,” NWS forecaster Craig Shoemaker said. “It may actually take days to get absolute certainty.”
The observation site had previously been reporting speeds greater than 150 mph for several hours, which is an unlikely occurrence, Shoemaker said, and it also had been reporting 92 percent humidity during the windstorm, another indication that malfunctions were possible.
The site is located at the Kirkwood ski resort and is not maintained by the NWS, Shoemaker said.
Northern California was experiencing fast-moving winds Sunday, with Sacramento reaching 45 mph, according to the NWS. In the mountains, gusts were expected to reach 60 mph.
PG&E said Friday it would be monitoring wind conditions over the weekend.
This story was originally published February 9, 2020 at 10:33 AM.
