Winds

Dave Roesner, in Parkville, has questions about the wind. "Which direction does a Nor'easter come from?" he asks. "When you call for westerly winds, are they coming from the west?" Lots of people stumble on this stuff. Nor'easters generally arrive here from the south, but they rotate counter-clockwise, like hurricanes, so they draw strong winds from the northeast, onto the Atlantic Coast, as they approach. Hence the name. "Westerly" winds blow from (not toward) the west, "easterlies" from the east.

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- The winds blew across the links of the Carnoustie Golf Club in yesterday's opening round of the 128th British Open, and the glowering skies early in the day were a telling sign."

Five days after ice and wind storms knocked out power to 350,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers in the metropolitan area, power was completely restored by 3: 30 p.m. yesterday.The problem -- concentrated most in Howard and Carroll counties -- required more than 800 BGE field employees, who worked around the clock. The few outages remaining last night were not related to the storms, said a BGE spokeswoman.As of 7 p.m. yesterday, Potomac Electric Power Co. had restored power to all but 3,500 customers in Montgomery County after Monday's high winds and heavy rains.

A four-alarm fire at a condominium complex near Mount Washington caused $500,000 in damage to more than a dozen units yesterday afternoon, sent clouds of smoke into nearby neighborhoods and forced some residents out of their homes indefinitely.Fire officials said no injuries were reported in the blaze, which began shortly before 3 p.m. at The Lodge at Jones Valley."It spread so fast, it was unbelievable," said Lenny Sherman, a neighbor who lives across from the development. "The building was fully engulfed."

Hard rain accompanied by winds gusting to more than 60 mph blew across Maryland early yesterday, tearing shingles from roofs, uprooting hundreds of trees and interrupting power to 36,000 homes, according to the National Weather Service office in Sterling, Va.The brunt of the storm, which dropped a little more than an inch of rain, struck between midnight and 2 a.m. and hit neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area. By 5 p.m. yesterday, power had been restored by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. crews to all affected customers.

OCEAN CITY -- Emergency management officials say Maryland's resort city should receive only a glancing blow from Hurricane Bonnie, as the first major storm of the season apparently will spare both property owners and beach-goers.Forecasters from the National Weather Service say the storm will arrive tonight, pass within 150 miles of the coast early tomorrow morning and bring sustained winds of 50 mph and higher gusts.Heavy rains and wind could bring flooding in some low-lying areas and some property damage is likely, officials say. But more than 200,000 visitors will be allowed to finish their late-summer vacations.

Standings after Leg 7Boat (Country) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Pts.EF Language (Sweden). .. .. .. .. .. ..689Swedish Match (Sweden) .. .. .. .. .. .585Merit Cup (Monaco).. .. .. . .. .. .. .527Innovation Kvaerner (Norway).. .. .. ..519Chessie Racing (U.S.).. .. .. .. .. ...494Silk Cut (Britain).. .. .. .. .. .. ...459Toshiba (U.S.) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ...363BrunelSunergy (Netherlands) .. .. .. ..353EF Education (Sweden).. .. .. .. .. ...178America's Challenge (U.S.)** .. .. .. ..48**Withdrew from raceWeatherWeakening low pressure over the northeastern United States will combine with a strong high pressure over eastern Newfoundland to produce southeasterly winds of 20-25 knots between the systems during the day. The winds are expected to begin easing tonight as the fleet gets closer to the high pressure area.

OCEAN CITY -- Hurricane Bonnie ended nearly a week of on-again, off-again flirtation with Maryland's resort city yesterday, providing an impressive but mostly harmless display of waves and wind.After frustrating forecasters by lingering for days in North Carolina and Virginia, slow-moving Bonnie yesterday was upgraded to hurricane and then downgraded again to a tropical storm as it skipped out into the Atlantic, providing residents and tourists with what one official described as "a very watchable hurricane."

For most of the first five days of Leg 5 in the Whitbread Round the World Race, Chessie Racing held first place, fighting off challenges from each of the other top five Whitbread 60s as the nine-boat fleet sailed south along the east coast of New Zealand in light to moderate winds and tropical seas.But by Day 6, last Friday, Chessie was beginning to fade as the leaders sailed toward the latitudes of the Furious 50s and the winds and seas began to rise. At today's second position report at 6 a.m. GMT, Chessie was in sixth place, 134 nautical miles behind leader EF Language.

SAO SEBASTIAO, Brazil - The next leg in the Whitbread Round the World Race is perhaps the trickiest. The winds can be tTC fickle, the Doldrums have to be crossed, and the north-flowing Gulf Stream must be negotiated before the 4,750 nautical miles to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., are finished.The secret of success in Leg 6, according to American Paul Cayard, skipper of overall leader EF Language of Sweden, will be to seize an early lead off the east coast of Brazil, be lucky in finding a path through the Doldrums, and be first to pick up the trade winds in the Caribbean.

Forty years ago tomorrow Hurricane Camille crashed ashore in Mississippi with 190-mph winds. It was the second-most-intense storm to hit the mainland U.S. and the most destructive of the time. It flattened nearly everything near the coast. But most of the deaths occurred days later when flash floods hit Virginia, killing 153 people. Freshwater floods after hurricanes kill more people than wind and tides.

GALVESTON, Texas - Punishing winds and waves from Hurricane Ike smashed into this low-lying barrier island yesterday, flooding roads and providing a preview of what authorities predicted would be catastrophic damage to Galveston - and possibly Houston and other inland areas. The storm, as big as Texas and packing winds of at least 110 mph, was expected to slam into the coast somewhere near Galveston just after midnight. Forecasters predicted that the storm's "dirty side," with the heaviest storm surge and highest winds, would batter Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city.

MIAMI - Hurricane Ike ripped through central Cuba yesterday, toppling colonial landmarks and forcing the evacuation of nearly 1 million people - with more likely to be displaced as the powerful storm plowed toward populous Havana. Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro proclaimed his country on "combat alert" against the third large storm to hit the island in as many weeks and what he portrayed as a heartless double standard that blocks U.S. humanitarian aid. The extent of Ike's damage elsewhere in the Caribbean emerged yesterday, a day after it ravaged Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 135 mph and triggered more flooding in devastated Haiti, where the deaths from a series of storms were said to exceed 1,000.

Marylanders were tying down and tightening up yesterday as they braced for the heavy wind, torrential rain and high water predicted to arrive today with Tropical Storm Hanna, the first such storm to menace the state since Ernesto in 2006. Forecasters warned residents to prepare for winds today in excess of 40 mph, with 4 to 7 inches of rain; 3 to 5 feet of storm surge and "battering waves" before Hanna races off to the Northeast this evening. Light rain began falling in Baltimore about 8:30 last night, signaling the storm's approach.

Joe Borchetti in Pasadena has watched this summer as tropical waves roll off the African coast and become tropical storms: "What causes these disturbances and why ... at this time of year?" Blame summer heat in the Sahara and cooler air over the Atlantic. The contrast forms low-pressure troughs, carried west by trade winds. Thunderstorms boil, and winds circle the low. A new tropical storm is born.

This week, in 1888, Baltimore caught the edges of what The Sun described as "one of the severest blizzards ever known on the Middle Atlantic coast." Cold air swept down from Lake Superior, while a powerful storm swirled north from Cape Hatteras. Ice, winds to 48 mph, and up to a foot of snow cut off telegraph and telephone communications with harder-hit cities to the north. Northwest winds dropped the Chesapeake tides 5 feet, emptying parts of the tidal Potomac and Baltimore harbor.

A wind-whipped rainstorm, part of a brawny system hammering the Northeast, swept into Baltimore and its surrounding counties with a bang yesterday, knocking over trees and utility poles and leaving more than 46,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers around the state without electricity. In Baltimore Harbor, a car-carrying ship broke free from its dock in the rough weather while being unloaded and drifted off, a Coast Guard spokeswoman said. Tugboat operators were still trying to secure the ship, which broke loose from a terminal in the Fairfield area, in the late evening.

A while back, a reader in Hamilton asked for the highest wind speed ever recorded in Baltimore. The National Weather Service never got me the answer. So Sun librarian Paul McCardell pulled some clips. Gusts at Friendship Airport (now BWI) reached 84 mph during Hurricane Hazel in October 1954. Winds were clocked at 90 mph June 29, 1980, at Dundalk Marine Terminal, when they toppled an 800-ton container crane. Maybe not the highest winds ever here, but serious contenders.

DENVER -- It was a heck of a drive for a plate of pasta. Visiting friends in Colorado for the holidays, Mike Watts and his father decided on a whim to take a spin to the mountains for lunch. They made it to a Ruby Tuesday's about 60 miles west of Denver. Then the winds kicked up. Twenty-four hours later, they were still stranded. "It's a mess," groaned Watts, 20, speaking by phone from a shelter in the town of Silverthorne. Nearly 3,000 travelers were trapped in the high country from early Sunday evening through late yesterday after gusting winds - and the threat of avalanches - forced authorities to close a 70-mile stretch of the Interstate 70 highway.

Dave Roesner, in Parkville, has questions about the wind. "Which direction does a Nor'easter come from?" he asks. "When you call for westerly winds, are they coming from the west?" Lots of people stumble on this stuff. Nor'easters generally arrive here from the south, but they rotate counter-clockwise, like hurricanes, so they draw strong winds from the northeast, onto the Atlantic Coast, as they approach. Hence the name. "Westerly" winds blow from (not toward) the west, "easterlies" from the east.