SEATTLE — Sunday marks the 63rd anniversary of the historic Columbus Day storm. This storm was catastrophic to the Pacific Northwest and remains the most powerful non-tropical windstorm to ever hit the lower 48 states in history.

Winds reached 100 mph, but had gusts equivalent to a category 4 hurricane at 150mph.

“The Columbus Day Storm was the grandaddy of all windstorms. All other windstorms are compared to the Columbus Day storm," said former National Weather Service meteorologist Ted Buhner. “It had power outages from the San Francisco Bay area into British Columbia. Unfortunately, 46 fatalities, hundreds were injured, thousands of buildings were destroyed, and it blew down 15 billion board feet of timber.”

That is enough lumber to build about one million houses.

The storm originat

See Full Page