Boulder-Creek.com Weather - Yearly Wind Speed

Daily Wind Gusts and Sustained Winds by Year

The following graphs displays the wind speed and gusts for the years 2002-2007 and the current 2008. Since this station was brought up on April 11th, 2002, the highest wind gust recorded by this station was 29.5 mph on January 1st, 2006 at 11:06am. Since the power went out about an hour prior, we don't have this value in the database! Due to the station's previous location and the blocking action of redwood trees, sustained winds are very rare. On average most gusts are around 5 mph. Though when the gusts are above 10 mph, usually a wary eye for widow makers (branches breaking off the trees and plummeting to earth) is the thing to do. Though in downtown Boulder Creek, winds can average much higher due to the wind-tunnel effect of the town layout and the lack of wind-blocking redwood trees. Also it should be noted that it appears that winds generally die down during the month of January.

The weather station was moved from Bear Creek location to its new home in the Cresta Vista subdivision about a mile north of town on August 6-7, 2005. With this move this station has undoubtedly seen higher sustained wind speeds and gusts due to its more exposed location. Winds typically start up around 10am and start to die down around 6pm or so.

Also note that during October-November-December, winds frequently die down which contributes to the coldest weather Boulder Creek gets during this period.

2008

The 2009 wind season started off quiet. The highest wind gust was recorded on February 22 at 1:55am of 26 mph. Oddly enough the power did not go out!

2008

The 2008 wind season started out with a bang with a big storm on January 4th which caused wide-spread power outages in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Up to 9.57 inches of rain was received during the three day storm. Some remote locations in the mountains were without power for a week to two weeks. PG&E brought in contractor crews from other states to repair wind damages through California. We lost power for 20 hours. The highest wind gusts, of which were a number, recorded were 25 mph. On February 24th, we received another strong wind storm which likewise had 25 mph wind gusts. Another good storm with high winds occurred on October 30th with the highest gust being 24 mph.

2007

The 2007 wind season has been relatively mild so far. The highest wind gust was 21 mph recorded on February 26th at 12:30pm, which was associated with a fairly good series of storms passing through the area. On August 7th through 11th, the anemometer was offline due to radio reception issues.

2006

For the 2006 wind season, the highest winds recorded was on January 1st. A wind gust of 29.5 mph was recorded by the weather console soon after the power was knocked out by trees falling on the power lines downwind from the weather station. The second highest wind gust, 25.3 mph was recorded on April 2nd. On December 26 through the 28th, a storm came in with high winds which is represented by the wind gust of 18.3 mph on the 26th. The storm knocked power to large sections of the San Lorenzo Valley. A branch from the neighbor's tree took out my house's electrical service, cable TV and telephone (though that was still operable) cables. Since we were only a single household, we were (understandably) one of the last to get power restored after 39 hours from the initial outage. Luckily, I had a 1600 watt generator for the refrigerator and a couple lights inside the house. (It's a good idea to own a generator up here in the Santa Cruz mountains!) No new wind gust record was set at the station though high winds were observed some 20 feet higher than the station anemometer, to be gusting over our ridge easily at an estimated 40 mph with Douglas Fir twigs and branches snapping off the trees of our neighbors. (See info link on wind estimation.)

2005

The highest wind gust recorded for this year at the new location was 21.5 mph on December 18th, 2005. With the old location the station recorded it's highest wind speed on 11.6 mph on March 20th, 2005. Definitely can see that the new location is definitely windier than the old location due to the lack of surrounding redwood trees. So far no major power outages have been recorded since PG&E has now become very proactive with their tree-trimming activities!

2004

The highest recorded wind gust record for 2004 was 14.1 mph that was recorded on December 30th, 2004.

2003

For the 2003 year, the highest gust recorded was recorded on March 13th, 2003 for a high of 10.7 mph.

2002

The Boulder-Creek.com weather station started up on April 11th, 2002. The highest wind gust recorded was 16.8 mph on December 14th, 2002. Soon after the power went out and did again a day later as well. On November 7th, 2002, with a high wind gust of 11.6 mph, the power went out again for several days!