Well, after the last couple days I would have to say it sure seems like winter has started for us!

For us though, it's not snow that usually comes with winter. It's storms. It started with a mild windy and rainy day on Monday, then it got with it yesterday! I'm hearing 70 mph gusts, but some are predicting higher. Trees are down all over, there have been people without power in areas a couple hours south of us and some a mile north of us. Luckily ours has stayed on. The high wind warning is supposed to be in effect until 7am this morning (an hour ago) and another one has been issued for tomorrow.

This was a storm that had us kinda worried, it had the perfect set up. We had a cold front move through the end of last week and dump snow in the mountains. Then a warm front came through with high winds and up to 5" of rain in some places. Combine that with extremely high tides and we have the same set up for the storm that hit us in 07. But that one had gusts over 100mph. In 07 we were trapped in our community, we have four ways out. The highway north of us washed out, the highway south of us had a huge landslide, the highway that goes out in between those areas washed out, and even a back road that is kind of a locals only know about it way had a major bridge wash out (which still isn't fixed and they aren't going to fix it, it would cost too much). The rivers were all flooding. We were without power for a week and it was a warm storm. So, since I was cooking all our meals on the wood stove, our house had to have been 100 degrees!

As far as this storm right now we're not out of the woods yet, but it doesn't look like it's going to be quite as bad. But there is a ton of flooding. The river that runs right through our small town is a tide effected river. So needless to say it has gone over the highway a couple of times in this storm already. But that seems like an every winter occurrence around here.

So far so good, but we will see. I really hope the power stays on long enough for the turkey to cook tomorrow! But if not we will cook on the wood stove! Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm inland near Forest Grove, in the foothills.

We got a lot of the strong wind/rains last night, not so much the day before.

this has a map showing precip amounts-
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/preci...0,7,8,2,9,15,6

Yep, sorry ours is a high wind "watch" for tomorrow, which usually turns into a warning. We are RIGHT on the coast. I'm no good at looking at those maps to see where we are unless they're labeled but I think if I'm looking right we are in red or pink for precip. I love that site though, we watch it all the time when we are watching for storms. How bad was the December 07 storm in FG?

Power was on/off a few times, I remember looking at videos on youtube that people had posted of the beaches, waves & wind during the storm.
Crazy people driving around with kids in the car & trees falling over

Yeah, I just found out that a teacher's assistant from my daughter's school was severely injured in a car accident within the last day. She was either driving to the airport to go to Hawaii or home from the airport on the way back from Hawaii. She had a bunch of family in the car with her. They came up on a tree down in the road. She got out to move it, another car was coming up and hit the tree which then hit her. She broke 18 bones and is in a medically induced coma. They have counselors there to help the kids with this if they need it. Her and her family could all use your prayers right now!

I know what you mean about parents with their kids, we live close to a mountain that has a rock wall facing a cliff over the ocean. People like to put their kids up on that wall and take pictures! The wind likes to gust up there and, yes it's coming from the ocean, but it hits the mountain and pushes back toward the ocean and can push you off the cliff in the blink of an eye. Fine stand up there yourself, but don't put your kids up there, they're too young to understand and shouldn't have to pay with their lives for your stupidity! Sorry, had to rant, in case you couldn't tell that makes me mad.

Be safe everyone and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Did you ever go to Prime Time? I saw it on the news today, so sad! My husband is a Fireman around here and when the news was showing the building, this morning while it was still burning he said the way the building was constructed played a big part in why the fire spread the way it did and made it unsafe for the Firemen to go in. The owners are saying they have insurance and they are going to rebuild, and luckily no one was in the building! One Fireman was being treated for exhaustion this morning but I haven't heard any more on him.

Went there once.