Wet and windy weather tore through Western Washington on Saturday night and Sunday morning leaving thousands of Seattle Seahawks fans without power.
‘Twas the morning before the NFC Championship game and all around Seattle, well, a lot of lights went out. A high wind warning was issued for Western Washington at 2am Sunday morning. Sustained winds were in the 20-30 mph range while gusts were up to 60 mph. That translated to a lot of power outages, with the hardest area being Kitsap County, an area just west of Seattle and home to plenty of Seahawks fans.
Initially the amount of people waking up without power Sunday morning was well over 60,000, however, by 8:30am, the state’s biggest energy provider Puget Sound Energy reported the outages were only affecting 29,000 customers. In Seattle, the main power company there, Seattle City Light reports a major outage affecting the Magnolia district.
60 ft tree kills power in magnolia #Seattle City light waiting ok to repair. could be hours @Komonews @komoradio pic.twitter.com/2DeAZNwO1d
— Gaard Swanson (@GaardSwanson) January 18, 2015
Meanwhile, PSE is recommending Hawks fans in outage areas find somewhere else to watch the Championship game as they are unlikely to have the power restored by kick-off at 12:05pm PST.
The weather in Seattle continues to be wet and windy, a typical January storm for the area, though the high wind warning was over at 8am. The effect on the field is being reported as a little unpredictable as of this writing.
Interesting phenomenon at CLink. Flags on south goal posts limp, flags on north goal posts horizontal. Obvious swirling effect.
— Dave Boling (@DaveBoling) January 18, 2015
Passing directly into and away from the wind not the real problem. Passing to the sidelines a bigger issue.
— Dave Boling (@DaveBoling) January 18, 2015
An hourly forecast for Seattle throughout the game shows rain percentage at 77 and winds should be around 23 mph for kickoff before going down to 18mph during the game. CenturyLink Field sits right near the water and as pointed out in the tweets above, a swirling effect often happens when the winds are high.
In wet, windy weather, the ground game for both teams could be a key. The kicking and punting games could be something to watch as well.
GB punter Tim Masthay just really shanked the punt of a wet ball. Kicking game a real key today.
— Dave Boling (@DaveBoling) January 18, 2015
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has fumbled the ball 12 times this season, but hasn’t lost one yet. Running back Marshawn Lynch is a different story, having lost two out of four fumbles this year. Either way, the first Championship of the day is shaping up to be a stormy one, not uncommon when these two teams meet.
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