Name: Fierce winds cause damage and fire danger throughout the West
Uploaded: 2025-12-20T04:14:09.344Z
Duration: 2 min 37 s
Description: More wintry precipitation is coming for the Pacific Northwest this weekend, following damaging winds that stretched all the way to the Plains.

More wintry precipitation is coming for the Pacific Northwest this weekend, following damaging winds that stretched all the way to the Plains.

Longmont

Severe winds in Longmont, Colorado, have caused major roof damage to a commercial climbing structure and increased fire danger throughout the region. The high winds have also led to planned power shutoffs, leaving over 100,000 addresses in Colorado without electricity, with additional outages reported in Washington, Montana, and Idaho.

Rain and snow are forecast across the western United States, including heavy precipitation in northern California, Oregon, and Nevada. Significant snowfall is expected in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, which is important for the area's water supply.

Fierce winds cause damage and fire danger throughout the West

Now let's go to Longmont, Colorado. Wrong as strong winds damage the roof of a large climbing structure here. You know, sometimes these commercial buildings have a taller footprint there or a taller height if it's an indoor climbing place. But the higher you go, the more you're exposed to the winds, nasty stuff. And I mean, that's not just a little bit of roof damage. I mean, that's like, what, 3 quarters of the roof off. This is a bad situation. Looks like a relatively new building as well. So again, fierce winds out there. The wind is also producing the fire danger that we've been talking about. So here we have the Colorado Rockies. Here's I-70. Here's Denver, Fort Collins, Cheyenne, Wyoming. And there is extreme, high end of the scale here, fire danger from the spine of the Rockies, from the continental divide east to I-25. And we've had some wildfires reported even as far south as Colorado Springs. There have been some planned power shutoffs in Colorado in advance of the wind. And over 100,000 addresses are in the dark there. Seen improvements in Oregon. Now, Washington, back up over 10,000 addresses without power, Montana, and Idaho on the map as well. So again, a lot of vantages continuing, although the overall number was greater yesterday in the Pacific Northwest. Here we have the rain moving through northern California, redding even into Reno. We're beginning to see some showers there. Snow in the highest of elevations. We also have snow into the middle and higher elevations of the Northwest right now. Saturday, we're going to be dealing with some more rain and snow, kind of showery in Seattle, but a steadier snow for the west-facing slopes of the Cascades. And the Bitterroots are getting in on some of that. James Madison at Oregon. College football playoffs. Look out for some showers late in the game here in Eugene, with rain increasingly likely. We can see as this comes in, we get a little bit of a temporary lull. Snow from the previous storm system rolls through areas. But there's very little of this that survives east of the divide there into the lower elevations because of downsloping. Rain showers Saturday late morning in the Northwest, mountain snow. And here comes the next surge of Pacific moisture, really escalating into northern California, northwestern Nevada. It's going to be widespread, heavy at times on Sunday into areas like Oregon, down into northern California. Widespread rain and some mountain snow as well. Meanwhile, in the NFL, Jacksonville at Denver. Pretty pleasant. It's such a different story east of the mountains. So this weekend, 10 to 20 inches of snow in progress at Snoqualmie. One to two feet white pass down into parts of Oregon between 6 and 10, 5 and 10, 6 to 12, and 8 to 16 inches of snow in various parts of the Oregon Cascades. And then the big story for next week, multiple feet of snow in the Sierra. We need the snow there. It's so important for water supply.

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