Chilly Windy Wichita Falls Return To Lucy Park Reminder Of Columbus Day Storm & Great Depression

Today, for the first time this third month of 2025, day 5, also known as Wednesday, it was back to Lucy Park I ventured for some semi-chilly, windy nature communing.

As you can see, via the view looking at the Lucy Park suspension bridge over the Wichita River, there is nary a cloud clouding the clear blue sky.

Yesterday was one of the windiest days I have ever experienced.

My memory may have to go back many decades, to remember stronger wind, to what is known as the Columbus Day Storm, a storm which pummeled the Pacific Northwest with hurricane strength wind. Hurricane strength of the Category 5 level of strong.

My mom let my little brother and me go outside and play in the Columbus Day storm. I remember pushing our bikes west on Washington Avenue, several blocks, to Anacortes Avenue.

And then getting on our bikes, letting the wind push us back home. That did not go well. By the time we reached our block, we were being pushed so fast, braking did not slow us. We both ended our windy ride by crashing into Maiben Park.

Yesterday's Wichita Falls wind blew all day long. I drove to Walmart around five in the afternoon. It was not easy walking into the store, dodging projectiles, holding onto my hat.

Apparently, the wind was worse in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex zone, with a dust storm coloring the sky red.

A dust storm, a cratering stock market, idiotic tariffs. Almost like history repeating itself replicating 1929/1930, when the Great Depression was getting increasingly depressing, with the Dust Bowl destroying farming, the Smoot-Hartley Tariff Act disrupting international commerce, the Stock Market crashing, with a Republican president, thought to be a successful businessman, who turning out to be inept at being President.

Big difference, though, way back then Herbert Hoover was not a stooge for Joesph Stalin...

Washington Wind Storm Reports From Linda & Jason Including Hillary & Batman

Yesterday afternoon, with yesterday being Friday, Little Miss Linda called me from my old home zone of Mount Vernon in the Windy State of Washington.

When I saw an incoming call from Little Miss Linda I figured she was calling to tell me about the Big Blow blowing in from the Pacific.

I figured correctly.

Yesterday's high wind and rain was a prelude to what is expected to happen today.

Forecasters have been comparing the potential of this current storm with the infamous Columbus Day Storm of 1962. That storm was one of the most powerful measured since the days of measuring storms began.

Anemometers, the wind speed detectors, were wiped out in northwestern Oregon and southwest Washington, the location of the strongest wind.

Wiped out before the wind reached maximum velocity.

While I was talking to Little Miss Linda the incoming call indicator indicated an incoming call from Little Miss Linda's neighbor, two blocks distant, with that neighbor being Spencer Jack's dad, my Favorite Nephew Jason.

I assumed Jason was also calling to tell me about the storm. I am technically challenged, phone-wise, so I don't know how to switch from one call to another without losing both. I figured Jason would leave a Voice Mail. But he didn't.

But, later in the day I received an email from Jason with the above photo and the only text telling me "Sent from my iPhone".

Via the photo I could tell Jason was in Seattle. I could tell this because through the wind and rain I could see the marquee of the Paramount Theater behind him. I knew Jason was planning to attend the Hillary Clinton Rally in Seattle. I am assuming this took place in the Paramount.

Above is a screen cap gleaned from the Seattle Times of Hillary's Seattle Rally. I do not see either Spencer Jack or Jason in the picture.

Even though Hillary was in the midst of a potentially historically powerful storm I hope she took some comfort in being in extremely friendly territory, a territory with way fewer Deplorables than my current location.

However, I do know some of the muy estupido ilk in Western Washington who are voting for the Orange Menace. I am embarrassed for them and have no understanding how we could have attended the same schools.

Then again, I do remember all those Washingtom Trumpettes, who I know, as being, well, not top tier students, maybe not even middle tier.

D Students for Donald.

That should be a slogan.

Another screen cap from the Seattle Times.

I do not know where in Puget Sound the above wave is crashing. The caption underneath the photo says "Spray flies over Beach Drive Southwest and douses storm watchers Friday". I do not know where Beach Drive Southwest is.

And then the below, seen yesterday via Skagit Breaking News, on Facebook. I thought this was mildly amusing.

Actually, Robin is asking Batman a perfectly sensible question. Umbrellas are of use in a normal Washington rain. However, to speak Washingtonian Robin should have asked if he should bring a Bumbershoot.

What Batman should have said to Robin, rather than abusing Robin with a slap, would be to tell Robin that Bumbershoots are of no use in hurricane level winds, Unless one is hoping to be able to hold on and be airborne....

Biking The Gateway Park FWMBA Trail Where The Trinity River Causes Me To Think About The Columbus Day Storm

Those are my handlebars you see in the picture, with the sun glistening bright off the longhorn handlebar extensions, on Gateway Park's FWMBA (Fort Worth Mountain Bike Association) mountain bike trail, today, in the noon time frame.

What you can not quite tell, via the picture, is that my handlebars are at the edge of a steep drop off that ends in that slimy green body of water known as the Trinity River.

Today, after I took the picture I looked down at the green slimy river and saw 3 big turtles luxuriating in the nutrient filled slimy green water.

Weeks ago, if I remember right, I mentioned that the river in my old home zone, that being the Skagit River, had shrunk to an extremely small version of its usually big self, due to a long drought.

Well, that drought has ended, with the Skagit River and the other rivers in Western Washington in flood mode. This morning I read 3 to 5 inches of rain had fallen in the mountains, with 1 to 2 inches falling in the lowlands. Hence the flooding.

I do not believe, in all my years of exile in Texas, I have ever read that a flood was coming due to a lot of rain falling in the mountains. I have read of a flood coming due to an incoming hurricane. I don't remember whilst living in Washington ever reading that a flood was coming due to a hurricane.

But, there have been floods in Washington, caused by a hurricane, we just don't call it a hurricane in the Pacific Northwest, I guess. Typhoon is the word that means hurricane. Or is a typhoon different than a hurricane or cyclone? I have no idea. I suspect I could Google this and end my bum puzzlement.

The hurricane, I mean typhoon, I am talking about was named Freda, but, by the time it hit Washington and Oregon it was known as the Columbus Day Storm.

This was one of the biggest storms in recorded history, sort of a Sandy of its day.

Below is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article about the Columbus Day Storm....

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 (also known as the Big Blow, and originally as Typhoon Freda) was an extratropical cyclone that struck the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States on October 12, 1962. The storm ranks among the most intense to strike the region since at least 1948, likely since the January 9, 1880 "Great Gale" and snowstorm. The storm is a contender for the title of most powerful extratropical cyclone recorded in the U.S. in the 20th century; with respect to wind velocity, it is unmatched by the March 1993 "Storm of the Century" and the "1991 Halloween Nor’easter" ("The Perfect Storm"). The system brought strong winds to the Pacific Northwest and southwest Canada, and was linked to 46 fatalities in the northwest and Northern California resulting from heavy rains and mudslides.

If I remember right the precise velocity of the maximum wind speed of the Columbus Day Storm is not known because over and over again the Big Blow blew out anemometers (wind speed measuring devices) at various measuring stations in its path.