National Weather Service issues high wind warning

High winds are ush­er­ing in an advanc­ing cold front sys­tem, down­ing power lines and gen­er­ally being a nui­sance dur­ing rush hour.

Gusts of up to 67 mph have been reported with sus­tained winds of 25 to 31 mph.

For this rea­son the National Weather Ser­vice has issued a High Wind Warn­ing for all of north­ern Ohio. This warn­ing remains in effect until 10 a.m. today.

Area schools with­out power include Lake Catholic High School in Men­tor, Roy­alview Ele­men­tary and Wil­low­ick Mid­dle School, both in Willowick.

Also power is out at Bell­flower Ele­men­tary in Men­tor where Men­tor Schools offi­cial have can­celled classes fol­low­ing a two-hour delay. Par­ents were noti­fied via a reverse 911 call sys­tem, Scool offi­cials said.

For FirstEnergy’s cov­er­age area, there are 54,000 cus­tomers with­out elec­tri­cal power.

Bro­ken down, Lake County has around 11,000 cus­tomers with­out power, Geauga County has around 500, and around 30,000 in Cuya­hoga County.

“Any time you have wind with this author­ity you have prob­lems. We often have to remove fallen trees before we can even get to the equip­ment to make repairs,” said Mark Durbin, spokesman for Akron-based FirstEnergy.

“The key is when this wind will stop; we might make a restora­tion in one neigh­bor­hood and then it can go out in another.”

Today’s fore­cast calls for a much cooler high in the mid- to upper-50s with a 60-percent chance of show­ers, likely between noon and 4 p.m.

Show­ers are expected to linger tonight with a decreas­ing chance on Fri­day which will have a high in the low 50s and con­tin­ued strong winds.

Sat­ur­day should see a warm-up with a high in the low 60s along with gen­er­ally fair skies and sun­shine before rain returns start­ing Sun­day and going into at least Monday.

Posted by Staff Reports on Apr 28 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.