Huge Area Of Northern United States Under Wind Alerts

High winds are and will be buffeting large areas of
the northern and western United States over the 
next couple of days. Areas in various shades of 
brown are under high wind warnings,
watches or advisories. 

 Those atmospheric rivers that are threatening the Pacific Northwest are teaming up with other weather systems to put an enormous are of the northern United States under wind alerts. 

High wind warnings and watches and wind advisories this afternoon extend from the Pacific Coast in Washington and Oregon all the way to western Minnesota. 

The wind is being created by the storms and a strong west-to-east jet stream coming off the ocean in the Pacific Northwest. An Arctic high pressure pushing down toward Montana from Canada is helping stir up the winds. 

So is pretty strong Alberta Clipper storm  that will head across the Northern Plains tonight and tomorrow and reach the Great Lakes area by Tuesday night and early Wednesday. 

I imagine some more wind advisories might eventually be hoisted because of this Alberta Clipper in some of Great Lakes states and maybe parts of  the Northeast. 

In the wide open expanses of Big Sky Montana, and the northern Plains, the terrain doesn't do much to stop or break up winds, so strong winter gusts are pretty common out there. Still, widespread areas could see gusts to 65 mph over the next couple of days. 

The good news is the huge area of high wind warnings across the northern Plains won't cause as much damage as a similarly huge area of strong gusts would on the East Coast. In the Plains, there's not that many trees to topple onto power lines and houses.  Plus, the populations is quite sparse, so there's relatively few people getting caught up in the storminess. . 

Along the eastern seaboard, heavily forested cities and neighborhoods and a dense population would mean hundreds of thousands of power outages and quite a few homes and cars damaged by falling trees if hit by a windstorm that's looming over places like Montana and North Dakota. 

The Pacific Northwest is heavily populated and full of trees, so there will be some power outages and downed trees and branches. But the winds there generally won't be as strong as they will be in the northern Plains. Places like Seattle and Portland might see gusts to 40 or 45 mph or so.

As mentioned Saturday, the real problem for the Pacific Northwest is the atmospheric rivers smashing into the region. Major flooding is still anticipated up in that neck of the woods.