November has a windy history in the U.S. Hurricane-force gusts back in November, 1975 sent the Edmund Fitzgerald to the bottom of Lake Superior. And there was nothing lackadaisical about Friday’s winds, clocked as high as 149 m.p.h. atop New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington. The mountain towers 6,288 ft. above sea level. The raging winds there made a 12° air temp feel more like -20°.
At the same time 2,000 miles to the west in Montana’s mountains, gusts to 62 m.p.h. whipped Browning, a community just east of Glacier National Park. The powerful wind regime—a by-product of huge north to south temperature and pressure variations in western North America—also produced 11 consecutive hours of winds above 50 m.p.h. at Lethbridge in Canada’s Alberta province.
Saturday’s mild air here extends the current spell of near or above normal temperatures to 18 consecutive days—the longest since last February and March.
-Tom Skilling
