This past "Friday the 13th" will be remembered for generations to come, as destructive gusts caused widespread damage and left more than 10% of the state without power.
RELATED: Thousands in Northeast Ohio still without power following Friday's high winds
Just how windy did it get? Cleveland beat its record for the highest gust ever recorded. An 85 mph gust was recorded at Burke Lakefront Airport at 3:09 p.m. Friday, beating the previous record-holder of 79 mph less than two years ago on Aug. 6, 2024. That was the day of a memorable tornado outbreak across Ohio.
That 79 mph gust was from a microburst, which is a severe thunderstorm with intense straight-line winds. Wind gust records for Burke go back to 1972.
As for Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, the main reporting site for the area, the wind gusted to 77 mph at 3:10 p.m. on Friday. That too is a new record.
The previous record at Hopkins was on Jan. 26, 1978, when a 71 mph gust was registered. That happened during the infamous Blizzard of '78. Wind gust records for Hopkins go back to 1965.
These records are not easily accessible and require Python coding to organize and determine the official records. A lot of time and effort was placed into certifying these records.
There was no thunderstorm or blizzard to create these record gusts on Friday. There were two other reasons that, when combined, created the damaging gusts.
Get ready for a science lesson. The two reasons were: a tight pressure gradient and a gust front.
A tight pressure gradient is created when a strong low-pressure system is very close to a strong high-pressure system. The gradient between the two is steep, and the wind in the area between the two is much stronger.
A gust front, which is a stronger kind of cold front, separates warm air ahead of the front from much colder air behind it. Temperatures fell from the 50s to the 30s in a short amount of time around 3 p.m. when these damaging gusts rolled through. Those two combined at the right time and intensity created a wind tunnel-like effect that amplified the wind into record territory.
I did not have enough time to crunch the numbers at Lorain Regional Airport in Elyria, or at Mansfield, but those gusts likely cracked the top-five, if not reaching a new record. Gusts area-wide were between 65 and 85 mph.
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