Pink Light Amid Washington Flood Fuel For Conspiracy Theories

Pink sky/air over Buckley, Washington earlier this month.
Photo from Michael Bradbury via X.

In the midst of those atmospheric river storms in Washington State this month, there was a break in the bad weather right at sunset, the day before yet another brutal storm swept in. 

People in the Seattle area flooded social media - pardon the pun - with photos of a spectacular sunset. It really was gorgeous. 

However, some other people in western Washington posted photos of gloom, but with an odd, distinct pinkish, lavender-ish glow that filled the atmosphere. 

This odd glow was noted as far east as Spokane, not far from the Idaho border. 

Given the times we live in, everybody and their brother has an ominous conspiracy theory for everything. Including the pink glow in Washington. 

It was supposedly a sign the government was unleashing terrible storms on us, for whatever reason they come up with. Maybe it was aliens. Strange energy forces. Maybe even chemtrails. 

To be Captain Obvious, none of those theories are true. 

Here's what likely happened:

The sky over Washington indeed filled with gorgeous sunset colors that late afternoon. Oranges, yellows, reds and pinks. 

In some places, however, all that moisture from the downpours created lots of lingering low clouds and fog,  which obscured that colorful sky. But those colors tried to soak into that fog. The likely result was that otherworldly pink glow. It was just nature doing something interesting and cool.

I've seen this sort of thing around here in Vermont, too. When it happens, it's just an opportunity to enjoy some new colors of nature. 

An example came on June 29, 2024. A warm front was coming through, creating gusty winds, and low, fast-moving clouds. Above those clouds, there was apparently a bright orange sunset. The result down on the ground here in St. Albans was a weird pinkish, purplish, windy summer evening. The video of that evening is below. The pink hue starts at about 1:20 into the video. 

Click this link to view the video.  Or if you see the image below, click on that to watch. 

 

Deadly Atmospheric Rivers Swamp West Coast From British Columbian To Oregon, Now Targeting California

As rain began in San Francisco
Saturday it was already chaos
A power blackout meant many
driverless Waymo taxis stalled 
in intersections because they
didn't know what to do with
traffic signals that weren't working. 

After trashing British Columbia, Washington, and eventually Oregon this month, atmospheric rivers continue to harass the West Coast, and now the main target has shifted to California. 

The storms have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in the Pacific Northwest. The wind energy from these storms has spread further damage from Idaho to New England. 

By the time we're done with these storms after Christmas. the entire area from north of Vancouver, British Columbia to San Diego, California will have been soaked and flooded and blasted. . 

I think this has turned out to be the nation's latest disasters costing $1 billion or more. And the damage will keep adding up. 

Let's take stock of what has already happened, and what we're bracing for, moving north to south. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA

The storms this month have caused a lot of power outages and flooding in British Columbia. Hundred of thousands of people lost electricity as surges of powerful winds blew through on several occasions in mid-December.

Ironically, drought in recent years has made the storms more damaging in British Columbia. Trees are weakened and damaged from the drought, making them more likely to snap and blow over in storms. 

Flooding hit British Columbia's Fraser Valley, damaging hundreds of homes   The Noosack River, which crossed into British Columbia from Washington, caused much of the flooding. 

Chilliwack, British Columbia had about 15 inches of rain between December 9 and 15, causing plenty of flooding and some landslides around the city, which is not far north of the border with Washington State. 

Power has not yet been 100 percent restored in British Columbia and some roads and highways remain closed due to flooding, washouts and mudslides. 

WASHINGTON

The last big atmospheric river surge finished crashing through Washington this past Tuesday into Wednesday with another gush of downpours and an even bigger gush of wind, as we noted the other day. 

Since then, the downpours have mostly devolved into the usual Pacific Northwest drizzles and mountain snows. But the damage is done and new post-storm problems keep popping up. 

Continued light rain, with a few bursts of heavier rain, falling on already super-soaked soil, is seriously increasing the risk of landslides in western Washington State. 

Sharp slopes on coastal bluffs, steep hillsides, road cuts and recently burned wildfire areas are most at risk. There have been several landslides already this weekend, The threat should continue for several days. 

A large marina in Tacoma was badly wrecked by debris and wind. Multitudes of trees were washed into the harbor by flooding rivers. Then, high winds turned those floating trees into battering rams, destroying docks and boats. 

Rainfall has been pretty incredible in some areas right along the Pacific Coast and in higher elevations. Forks, Washington, a little inland from the Pacific Ocean in northwest Washington, has received 22.1 inches of rain so far this month. 

Rain during the atmospheric rivers reached high into the mountains, melting the snow that usually forms a thick blanket way up on those slopes.  The snow levels are now down to normal elevations, and the fluff is finally piling up in the Cascades.

OREGON

In Oregon, one person died when he drove around flood barriers and got caught in swift, deep floodwaters. Elsewhere in Oregon, a family of five was rescued from a pickup truck that got caught in swift water. 

In Tillamook County, five drivers had to be rescued from floodwaters, most of them after they drove around barricades. 

The Clackamas River rose 26 feet, flooding through homes and leaving yards littered with large trees and other debris. 

Landslides closed many roads in Oregon, including several near Mount Hood National Forest; along a section of the Columbia River Highway and in Oregon City.  

The rain in Oregon has tapered off some, but rivers are still flooding, even if they are gradually receding. Forecasts of daily rain coming up through the next week, will slow the Oregon recovery. 

CALIFORNIA

Next on the atmosphere river hit list is California.  

The first blast of atmospheric river downpours is hitting California from roughly the Bay Area north. Flooding is a good bet today and tomorrow in many areas of northern California, but areas near Placerville, Oroville and Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills. These areas could get five to seven inches of rain in the next 24 hours. 

Heavy rain would continue in those same foothill areas tomorrow, making any flooding even worse.

Another surge of deep moisture off the Pacific will renew heavy rains in California, and those downpours will spread south.

By Tuesday night and Christmas Eve, rainfall rates through much of the L.A area, especially higher elevations, could reach to an inch per hour or more. This sets the stage for lots of mudslides and debris flows, especially in areas that saw wildfires in the past couple of years. 

Moisture content in the storm will be near record high levels, according to the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles. The flood watch for northern California is lasting a long time. It starts today, and goes into next Friday. 

 In less than a week, Los Angeles could receive more than five inches of rain. Normal rainfall for the entire month of December in L.A. is 2.3 inches. 

Snow levels will be high in the Sierra Nevada, so some places that usually get snow in the winter will see rain. Rain today is falling at elevations below 8,800 feet, and the snow level should slowly drop to 7,400 feet, give or take, by Tuesday night  

Way, way up there in the high Sierra, accumulations this week will range from four to ten feet, or even more.

It's going to be a long, long, tedious Christmas week for California.   

Today Is Winter Solstice, But Sun Began Setting Later Several Days Ago. Here's Why

At 3:55 p.m. Saturday, the sun was already close to
setting over St. Albans, Vermont. Today is the winter
solstice, the shortest daylight of the year. But 
strangely, sunsets started getting a bit later
starting December 10. There's a reason for that. 

The winter solstice hits today at 10:03 a.m. 

It is the shortest daylight of the year, but even, the earliest sunset and latest sunrise of the season don't exactly line up.  

Believe it or not, our earliest sunset was about a week and a half ago. And our latest sunrise won't hit until just before the New Year arrives.  

Why?

It's a little complicated, but here it goes: 

As Timeanddate.com explains:

"This is because of a discrepancy between our modern-day timekeeping methods and how time is measured using the Sun, known as the equation of time."

The equation of time is the difference between time measured using a sundial, also as true or apparent solar time, and the time measured using a clock, also known as mean solar time.....

Most clocks run on the idea that a day is exactly 24 hours. Technically a day is the duration between one solar noon, the time of day the the sun is at the highest point in the sky, to the next."

A solar day is not exactly 24 hours long. It varies through the year because the elliptical shape of Earth's orbit and the tilt of our planet. A solar day is longer than 24 hours in the summer and winter solstice. It's a little shorter than 24 hours at the spring and autumn equinoxes. 

This means solar noon comes at a different time than the noon you see on your watch or smart phone. For instance, in New York City, solar noon hits at 11:54 a.m. clock time.  By January 3, the Big Apple's solar noon and "watch" noon both hit at 12 on the dot. On January 4, solar noon as at 12:01 p.m., and it keeps getting later through January, as Timeanddate.com explains. 

That shift in solar noon means both sunset and sunrise keep getting later into the first days of January. 

In Burlington, Vermont, the earliest sunsets of the year hit on December 8 and 9, at 4:12 p.m. With both sunrises and sunsets getting later, today is the shortest day of the year with a sunrise at 7:26 a.m. and sunset at 4:16 p.m.

Our sunrises will keep getting later for awhile yet. The latest sunrises are at 7:29 a.m. each day between December 30 and January 5. After that, sunrises start getting earlier while sunsets keep getting later. 

Basically. days get longer from now until January only very slowly. Once we get into January, the pace of lengthening days begins to pick up. 

COLDER TIMES AHEAD?

There's an old saying that as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens. 

And it's true: On average, the coldest weather of the winter comes around the third week in January. Every winter is different, of course, so the most frigid days in some years can come in December or February instead. 

But, the depths of winter are generally in the second half of January. 

Even though the northern hemisphere begins to get a little brighter after today, the high Arctic remains deep in darkness. What little warmth might be left up there radiates out into space. The supply of gelid air keeps growing, just waiting for a chance to rush southward onto poor unsuspecting people like us Vermonters.   

Meanwhile, lakes in southern Ontario and Quebec continue to freeze up. Parts of the Great Lakes do, too. That means Arctic air coming from the North Pole can't as easily absorb a bit of the warmth of the lakes to modify those pushes of frigid air. 

Also, as the lakes freeze, they're less able to transfer moisture to the air. That means fewer clouds downstream from the lakes here in Vermont. Nights are a little more likely to be clear in January than they were in November and December. Clear, calm nights tend to be the coldest. A clear January night a mean the bottom falls out of the thermometer. 

Though the days will slowly lengthen over the coming weeks, you probably won't get much of a break from our cold winter winds. 

But slowly, you'll eventually notice a change. Maybe on a February day, the winter sun will actually feel a little warm. As we get through the late winter, thaws start to become a little more frequent. Before you know it. balmy spring breezes will ruffle your hair and brighten your mood.  

Trump Administration Breaking Up Renowned Climate Center; Retribution Against Colorado Governor Suspected

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colorado. The Trump administration
wants to break it up saying the scientists there
are "climate alarmists" with no evidence to back
that up. It appears the announcement might
be related to Colorado refusing to release
from jail a 2020 election conspiracy theorist.

One of the world's leading climate research centers, in Boulder, Colorado, is targeted for closing because Donald Trump has his head in the sand. 

And also probably because he's still butthurt that Colorado won't release a 2020 election conspiracy theorist from jail.

At issue is the National Center For Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. It was founded in 1960 and has resources like supercomputers, data sets and high-tech research planes that conduct meteorological and climate research. It's also an educational center for future scientists. 

As you'd expect, scientists are almost uniformly outraged by the plan to dismantle NCAR. 

Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, called the center "quite literally our global mothership," and said "Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet."

Hayhoe also said on her post on the social media platform X: 

"(NCAR) supports the scientists who fly into hurricanes, the meteorologists who developed new radar technology, the physicists who envision and code new weather models and yes, the largest community climate model in the world" 

Casper Amman, a former research scientist at NCAR, told the Washington Post the center plays a unique role by bringing together soiled specialists to collaborate on some of the biggest climate and weather questions of our time. 

"Without NCAR, a lot could not happen....A lot of research at U.S. Universities would immediately get hampered, industry would lose access to reliable base data."

Weather and climate services around the world use NCAR modeling and forecasting tools. It also supplies real time data to people dealing with events like big wildfires and floods. 

Of course, the Trump camp has a completely different view about their plans to dismantle NCAR.

 Here's a Trump minion on X:

"The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado......This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."

One of Trump's favorite whines is climate change. Every chance he gets, he says climate change is a hoax and a con job, his words. He apparently thinks that he's smarter than the vast majority of scientists who tell us climate change is real. Those scientists are growing increasingly alarmed about that warming. 

 USA Today, which first reported this development, reported:

"The administration plans to identify and eliminate what it calls 'green new scam research activities' during an upcoming review of the center, according to the White House while 'vital functions' such as weather modeling and supercomputing will be moved to another entity or location. 

Efforts to dissolve the National Center for Atmospheric Research will begin immediately, the official said, with the plan being to fully close the center's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder."

NCAR's staff consists of 830 employees who are part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities. Those universities focus on earth system sciences. We don't yet know how many jobs or programs this dismantling would affect.

THE REAL REASON

There's almost certainly more to all this than just Trump's aversion to any true information about climate change. Trump's focus seems to be suddenly all about Colorado 

 As USA Today reports:

"The move to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research comes after the Trump administration earlier in the day announced the cancellation of $109 million environmentally focused transportation grants in Colorado that sought to boost electric vehicles, rail improvement and research into hydrogen and natural gas-powered trains."

Amid these announcements, and on the same day the NCAR breakup was announced, Trump called Polis "weak and pathetic" and "incompetent" because he refused to release former Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters from prison.

And there it is: Revenge. 

Peters was once the top election official in Mesa County. She's part of the election 2020 conspiracy gang, convinced the election that year was "stolen" by the Joe Biden campaign. There's no evidence that ever happened. 

Eventually, in 2024,  a Colorado jury convicted Peters of giving Trump supporters unauthorized access to a voting machine after the 2020 election. She's serving a nine-year sentence on those state charges. 

Recently, Trump said he is pardoning Peters. There's one teeny, tiny problem with that. The president can only pardon people who were convicted on federal charges and are in federal prisons.

Peters was convicted on charges brought by the State of Colorado and is in a state prison. 

"Tina Peters was convicted guy a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation. No President has jurisdiction over state law more the power to parse a person for state convictions," said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. 

How dare Polis stand up to Glorious Leader Trump!  So the Trump people brought out their usual mob boss schtick. "Nice state ya got there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it."

Here's the quote to prove it:

"'Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump his constituent would be better served,' a senior White House official told NOTUS in an email on Wednesday."

NOTUS.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news outlet.

The Washington Post said an unnamed White House official declined to say how Polis is not cooperating with the administration, but denied the move was in response to Polis and his team not releasing Peters from prison.

Sure, Jan. 

Colorado is already fighting back 

According to Politico,  the U.S. Senate adjourned for the holidays this past week without passing a government funding package that would prevent a partial government shutdown starting January 30. 

One big part of the holdup are Democratic Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, who said they would hold up the spending package because of the plan to dismantle NCAR.  

Trump appears to be in a weaker position politically than he was earlier this year. Stay tuned at this bat channel to see whether the plan to end NCAR really happens.

We should all hope not. 

Saturday Vermont Update: Big, Gusty Storm Over; But It Will Stay Windy And Changeable

Tree and wires down on Stone House Road in Enosburg
yesterday. Photo by Christopher Bergeron via Facebook

The weather was certainly all over the place on Friday, with those howling winds, record highs, drenching downpours, then crashing temperatures. 

See last night's post for a complete rundown of record highs and top wind speeds across Vermont. 

We won't have anything quite that extreme for awhile. But it's going to stay windy with more yo-yo temperatures for the next several days. 

Before we get into that, a couple more aspects of that wild storm we had yesterday. We here in New England were actually the victim of an atmospheric river, much like what hit the Pacific Northwest last week. 

Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow regions in the atmosphere, basically rivers in the sky, that transport enormous amounts of water from the tropics. The average atmosphere river carries an amount of water vapor equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to NOAA. 

The difference is, yesterday's atmospheric river targeted us only for a very short period of time. The Pacific Northwest event was a fire hose aimed at the same spot for weeks. 

Our atmospheric river, which originated in the Gulf of Mexico, was a lot like a firefighter sweeping his hose across a long, burning wall. We only got soaked for a few hours. 

But you can tell how strong these wet tropical fire hoses are.  We had those record highs, statewide, including that 63 degrees in Burlington. It was also Burlington's wettest December 19 on record, with 0.84 inches. Virtually all that rain fell in just five hours. 

Atmospheric rivers, working in tandem with storm systems. more often than not cause strong, often damaging winds. Which is what we saw in Vermont Saturday. 

Yesterday's atmospheric river didn't last long enough to cause any flooding. But they can cause havoc in New England, and they have. Our huge, catastrophic flood in July, 2023 was caused by an atmospheric river. 

According to reporting by Inside Climate News, researchers have concluded that atmospheric rivers along in the eastern United States  are increasing in frequency, while those on West Coast are decreasing, this month's weather notwithstanding. 

Between 1980 and 2020, eastern atmospheric river activity from the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean increased at a rate of five percent per decade, according to the research.  Most of those atmospheric rivers affected the southeastern U.S, but some of them do make it up into the Northeast. 

One caveat: The distinction is a little dim between an atmospheric river and just blobs of deep moisture coming off the Gulf  and Atlantic. But this atmospheric river situation is a climate change signal that we ought to keep an eye on. It could be helping grow the propensity for extremes in the Northeast, including here in Vermont. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Over the next few days atmospheric rivers will be back to tormenting the West Coast. More on that on an  upcoming, separate post. 

There's no immediate sign of another atmospheric river for us anytime soon. But a fast coast-to-coast jet stream across the northern United States will ensure constantly changing weather here in Vermont, and a more windy days and nights.. 

Luckily, I don't see signs of winds getting as strong as they did yesterday. 

As of 9:45 a.m. today, there were still about 2,800 Vermont customers without electricity. A second big push of wind overnight kept creating new outages even as crews fixed problems created during the day Friday. Other damage included a building in downtown Winooski, where winds blew off a large section of brick veneer from the structure. 

The wind has died down, and the sun is out, so we're getting a Saturday break from all the noise outdoors. But it's a short break. Especially in the Champlain Valley. 

Another storm passing well to our north will pull in some stiff southerly winds over the Champlain Valley tonight. We won't get much precipitation out of it, maybe a few snow showers tomorrow morning. 

The storm will create strange temperature trends again, only this time it won't be extreme. Temperatures will slowly rise into the low 30s overnight instead of falling like they usually do. And during the day Sunday, temperatures will fall in the late morning and afternoon instead of rising like they're supposed to. 

For those of you who have no snow left on the ground after yesterday's storm, there's still one last chance of a white Christmas. 

It looks like another storm diving southeastward from the Great Lakes will cross New England Tuesday, laying down a stripe of snow across the region. Not much. Early guesses put us in the two to four inch range. And there's a possibility it could get warm enough for the snow to mix with rain. 

We'll get updates as we get closer to the event. 

Beyond Tuesday, it gets even harder to predict what will happen. With such a fast west to east flow in the atmosphere, it can get tricky to tease out when each disturbance will come through, how strong they might be, and whether enough warm air will come in to mix in some rain or ice with the snow chances. 

The weather pattern will mean more spells of gusty winds, so hang on to your Santa hat. 

Meteorologists, and probably everyone else will need to stay on their weather toes Christmas week. But I don't see any signs of another big storm anytime soon. 

Wild Vermont Weather Day Is Over; We Still Face A Few Issues With Wind, Snow Showers

View from St. Albas, of the sharp squall line
approaching from New York State shortly
before noon today. 

Well, that was quite a weather day here in Vermont, wasn't it? 

Between the damaging wind gusts. the torrents of rain, the record high temperatures, then the big temperature crash, there was a lot going on. .

WIND/POWER OUTAGES

I'll hit some of the highlights in this update, here on this (much calmer) late Friday afternoon. 

The number of customers across Vermont that lost electricity to the gales reached as high as nearly 21,700 at a little before noon. That reportedly represents a bit over 20 percent of all Vermont electricity customers

As of 5 p.m. the number of people still without electricity was still at nearly 8.500.

The wind this morning was the obvious culprit. Those high speed winds a few thousand feet aloft mixed down to the surface in some places, while it wasn't all that windy in others.

The places that did get windy really had their hats blown off. Top winds reported included 73 mph in South Lincoln and  67 mph in Pleasant Valley. That's the area between Underhill and Cambridge in the shadow of Mount Mansfield.

Other reports include 66 mph in Jay, 63 mph at the Morrisville/Stowe Airport, and in West Enosburg. Sections of some roads in Vermont closed temporarily because fallen trees and power lines were draped across them. 

Radar image of today's squall line approaching
from NewYork showed in really meant business. 

.The Green Mountain summits poked up into that layer of high speed air overhead. A gust on Mount Mansfield reached 106 mph.  Most ski areas in Vermont either shut down or had lift holds today. 

RECORD HIGHS

The big surprise today were the record highs. We knew it would be really warm, but it got pretty crazy. Burlington got up to 63 degrees,  roaring past that old record of 49 set in 1895. 

We now have no December daily record highs in the 40s. December record high in the 60s are increasing fast. Climate change again. 

Burlington's high today was a tie for eighth hottest December day on record. Pretty impressive considering the rest of the month so far has been decidedly on the cold side.

Other record highs today include, the following, with the old record in parentheses; Plattsburgh, NY, 59 (49 in 1967); Bennington, 57, (47 in 20-17); Newport, 53, (49 in 1949) and Montpelier, 53 (49 in 1949).

One piece of good news is so far, despite the midday deluge, there's been no reports of flooding.

REST OF THE STORM

Technically the storm isn't done with us yet. A brief slot of dry, rather calm air came in late this afternoon. There was even a decent sunset around Burlington. 

But as the evening goes on, you'll feel the west winds increase. All of Vermont except the Champlain Valley is still under a wind advisory.  That advisory goes until 7 a.m. Saturday and calls for peak gusts in a few spots to 50 mph. That's enough to trigger a few more power outages. Yay! 

It'll be blustery overnight in the Champlain Valley, with the strongest gusts in the 40 to 45 mph range. 

Snow showers were just beginning to make their way back into Vermont as of 5 p.m. A few of them will actually come in the form of a few raindrops in the valleys early this evening before the cold air solidly arrives overnight. 

The snow won't amount to much. Most of us will get somewhere between a few flakes and a little under an inch. But that bit of snow, combined with all that water freezing, will create icy spots on the roads overnight and Saturday morning. 

The weather pattern is still active, and I'll get into that my Saturday morning post. 

Huge Western Winds Continue; Big Colorado Fire Threat Today

Rangeland fires in Colorado Wednesday amid high
winds. Today, there's a particularly dangerous
fire risk along parts of Colorado's Front Range
as winds could reach 100 mph. 

 More rounds of high winds are hitting the West today after some incredible gusts roared through an enormous part of the western United States. 

In most places, today's gush of wind in the western United States isn't quite as bad as Wednesday's mess. But it will cause added damage in a wide area that has already suffered huge amounts of tree loss, power outages and structural damage.

The scariest place today will be along and just east of the Front Range in Colorado, where an incredible dangerous potential fire situation is unfolding. More on that in a bit. 

Some of the top wind gusts in mountainous areas included 144 mph at Mount Coffin, Wyoming, 142 mph at Goldwater Ridge Washington; 127 mph at Whitewood, South Dakota and 123 mph in Red Canyon.

Down where people live, the gusts were still incredible. Reports include 102 mph in Golden, Colorado, 101 mph in Rapid City, South Dakota, 99 mph in Missoula, Montana and 85 mph in Casper, Wyoming. 

Miraculously, I'm only aware of one death so far. It was a 55 year old man in Idaho who died when a tree crashed through the roof of his house and landed on the bed where he was sleeping. 

COLORADO DANGER

In Colorado, about 25,000 households were still without power Thursday afternoon after Wednesday's storm. That one brought local wind gusts of up to 100 mph. 

On Wednesday, areas around Boulder, Colorado Springs and places like that were worried about wind-driven wildfires. Thankfully, no heavily populated areas had wildfires. But three of them broke out in rural Yuma County. 

The largest of them raced through 12,000 acres and destroyed four structures, all either sheds or abandoned houses. The fire was 90 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, Colorado Public Radio reported.

Now, a new storm looms today with a new round of winds of up to 100 mph in the immediate foothills of the Front Range again.  The hurricane force gusts are not expected to cover as large an area as Wednesday's storm. 

But, it's even drier than it was Wednesday, and the winds will be widespread. A large area covering an area from Nebraska down through the western half of Texas is at risk for large, wind driven wildfires today. 

A smaller area right along the Front Range from about Boulder and Fort Collins Colorado up through Cheyenne, Wyoming is really scaring people today. 

The strongest winds and lowest humidity in those cities will hit this afternoon through early this evening. A rare "particularly dangerous situation" red flag warning is in effect for areas immediately adjacent to the foothills in and near Boulder, west of Fort Collins and near Cheyenne. 

It's rare to see that kind of wording in a fire risk advisory. It means any fire that can get going could race erratically through trees, rangeland and neighborhoods. You'd expect that if winds gust to as high as 100 mph, as predicted. There's a risk of another firestorm like the one in December 2021 that destroyed around 1,000 homes around Boulder. 

A grass fire in Cheyenne Wednesday forced the evacuation of a neighborhood. The fire was contained, and people are back home, but today's weather forecast is surely freaking people out around there. 

WIND ELSEWHERE

People are still cleaning up from the gales from Washington to South Dakota.

Rapid City, 101 mph gusts were reported, not far from downtown. At the official weather station at the regional airport, the wind gusted to 94 mph, the highest wind gust on record, beating out an 89 mph gusts during a July, 2002 severe thunderstorm. 

A wildfire broke amid strong winds in Rapid City, South Dakota. It burned along Skyline Drive, a posh section of the city. It looks like firefighters contained the fire before it could burn any houses. 

However, around Rapid City, a radio tower collapsed in the winds, buildings lost their roofs and a lot of trees toppled. 

Throughout the huge state of Montana, crews were clearing fallen trees. Big Sky Country often gets big wind, but it's usually not as widespread for as persistent as this. At one point Wednesday, the entire state was under a high wind warning. 

Today, it's only the western half of Montana under a high wind warning, but winds could still reach 80 mph in some mountainous terrain. 

As new storms come off the Pacific, more high wind warnings are in effect for parts of Oregon.  The weather pattern will continue to feature a fast, west to east blast across the U.S. so more windy weather will keep cropping up here and there coast to coast through the Christmas holiday.