Well, that wasn’t as bad as we were lead to believe it would be.
Saturday was a wet day but the powerful winds that were supposed to accompany the remnants of Typhoon Songda did not have the effect in the Campbell River area, at least, that the region was expected to endure.
Winds of 80 km/h were forecast for the afternoon and into the evening. However, the heaviest wind we experienced according to Environment Canada weather data was 25, 29, 20 and 18 km/h between 9 a.m. and noon. It picked up to from a low of six km/h as it changed from ESE (east-southeast) to southwest (SW) and to WNW (west-northwest) between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. and then held steadily between 12 to 16 km/h until data was stopped recording at 11 p.m.
Rain, fairly heavy at times, and fog accompanied the lighter-than-expected winds.
This, the third in a series of powerful October storms, ended up packing less punch than had been predicted in the Lower Mainland as well.
The remnants of Typhoon Songda ended up tracking further north, bringing the fiercest winds to areas like Howe Sound and the Sunshine Coast on Saturday night.
Authorities took no chances, with BC Ferries cancelling sailings Saturday afternoon and BC Hydro crews scrambled to restore electricity where trees fell across power lines.
By noon Sunday, barely 1,000 Lower Mainland/Sunshine Coast homes were still without power, plus just over 800 on Vancouver Island, down from at least 33,000 southwestern B.C. customers without service at one point Saturday evening.
The winds were less powerful than predicted in the more populated parts of the region – maximum gusts of 59 and 63 km/h were measured at Abbotsford Airport and YVR, respectively – but they topped 100 km/h at some more exposed weather stations, such as Race Rocks off Victoria and Pam Rocks in Howe Sound.
On northern Vancouver Island, according to BC Hydro, power outages seemed mostly to affect the Nanaimo-Parksville-Port Alberni area . A number of outages in those communities were attributed to trees down across power lines. An outage in Campbell River yesterday in the Seascape Road area was attributed to a fire. The power was out there between 5:37 p.m. and 9:47 p.m., according to BC Hydro.
The weather for today is expected to be showers with 10-15 mm of rainwith the same expected on Monday.
At least, that’s the prediction.
– with files from Jeff Nagle/Black Press