A Lethal Wind: The 1962 Columbus Day Storm

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 was a freak of nature, a climate outlier with lethal winds topping 100 miles per hour. The storm killed dozens, injured a whole lot, broken greater than fifty thousand properties, and leveled sufficient timber to construct a million properties. To search out an equally ferocious storm of its form, fast-forward fifty years and cross the continent to Superstorm Sandy’s 2012 assault on the East Coast. Whereas Superstorm Sandy was predicted days upfront, the Columbus Day Storm caught ill-equipped climate forecasters without warning.

This unrivalled West Coast windstorm fueled the Asian log export market, helped give beginning to the Oregon wine trade, and influenced the 1962 World Sequence. It stays a cautionary story and the Pacific Northwest benchmark for extreme windstorms on this period of local weather change and climate uncertainty. From its genesis within the Marshall Islands to its ultimate hours on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, the storm plowed an unparalleled path of destruction.

In A Lethal Wind, veteran journalist John Dodge tells a compelling story spiced with human drama, Chilly Warfare pressure, and Pacific Northwest historical past. This can be a must-read for the tens of 1000’s of storm survivors, for historical past buffs, and for anybody within the intersection of extreme climate occasions and local weather change.