Windy Camas and smells? (house, live in, moving)

[diggitydot]

Originally Posted by st33lcas3

OK, I'll give ya the river part. I mixed up the direction.
However, the gorge winds usually travel upriver, from the ocean to the interior. Think of the eastern OR/WA area. Large, flat and hot in the summer. The rising heat currents off the high desert pull the wind inland, from the ocean. Even in the winter, the weather coming off the Pacific forces the winds inland. I've windsurfed the gorge, 99% of the time the winds are coming out of the west and going towards the gorge.

Usually you only smell the mill at night, when things have cooled off and the vacuum effect isn't as pronounced.

I'm sorry, but no, that isn't accurate. While yes, occasionally the winds shift from their normal patterns they are almost always heading east to west. Just ask anyone who's lived there for any length of time in or near the gorge about the east winds and you'll hear LOTS.

Here's a link to another discussion in these forums about the Columbia River gorge where another poster mentions specifically the east winds:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/washi...rge-winds.html

Here is an example:

Sunday: Sunny. Windy. Highs 40 to 45. East wind 15 to 25 mph decreasing to 10 to 15 mph late in the afternoon. Near the gorge...east wind 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 45 or 50 mph. Decreasing late in the afternoon..

I think Brett is telling me that locations locations off the river are not greatly affected. I am looking at a location two miles off the river in Camas and one just a half mile from the river in Vancouver, and am trying to understand just how much more wind those locations experience compared to one another mile or two north.

[woody75]

We live in Fishers Landing near the Camas border, and we only smell the mill a couple times of year. I really only notice the wind in the fall and winter, when a cold wind blows in & it is from the east. I just protect my tender plants that catch the east wind. Housing prices have continued to increase or hold steady here, compared to other parts of the nation, and you can still get more house for the $ here than in Portland ( and the schools here are superior). Good advice to check your commute into Portland, some areas can get congested-- but the commute for me from the 192nd interchange (SR14 exit 10) to PDX airport is less than 15 minutes!

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by st33lcas3

OK, I'll give ya the river part. I mixed up the direction.
However, the gorge winds usually travel upriver, from the ocean to the interior. Think of the eastern OR/WA area. Large, flat and hot in the summer. The rising heat currents off the high desert pull the wind inland, from the ocean. Even in the winter, the weather coming off the Pacific forces the winds inland. I've windsurfed the gorge, 99% of the time the winds are coming out of the west and going towards the gorge.

No, they don't, as diggitdot said. There is generally a relatively higher pressure ridge over eastern Oregon, which means that the wind travels from higher elevation, higher pressure east to sea-level, lower pressure west. The gorge acts like a venturi for those winds. Prevailing winds in Portland area are almost always from the east, unless it's lighter wind conditions. There is a pretty reliable west wind on the river, especially toward evening (having sailed into many times), but it's mostly surface level.

[st33lcas3]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

No, they don't, as diggitdot said. There is generally a relatively higher pressure ridge over eastern Oregon, which means that the wind travels from higher elevation, higher pressure east to sea-level, lower pressure west. The gorge acts like a venturi for those winds. Prevailing winds in Portland area are almost always from the east, unless it's lighter wind conditions. There is a pretty reliable west wind on the river, especially toward evening (having sailed into many times), but it's mostly surface level.

Ey carumba, this is getting ridiculous.

High pressure equals heat in the summer. Heat creates thermals. Thermals create an updraft. Air is pulled upriver through the gorge to 'fill the void' the thermals create.

Here is a study on haze in the Columbia Gorge. Scroll down to page sixteen and read the chart.
http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/gorgea...ethodology.pdf

Also read the first page. The majority of the year (winter being the exception due to no thermals in the eastern part of OR\WA) winds travel upriver.

[StealthRabbit]

Wind direction depends on the progress of the pressure change.

The low pressure winds (exiting eastern WA / OR) travel BELOW the high pressure front moving inland, thus during a change of pressures the wind is from east to west...(Usually very high speed and cold in winter) UNTIL the high pressure system coming from the west empties the area of low pressure, then the front just lumbers into town (very slow, usually un-noticed as wind) EXCEPT with pineapple express, that comes from SW with LOTS of rain, and sometime 30 - 50 mph, but seldom the sustained 50 -80 MPH (at Cape Horn / Vista house) of the EAST wind that is trying to escape eastern WA/OR.

I won't have to argue, as from our elevation we frequently SEE the wind blowing both east and west. White (lower) clouds blasting WEST to escape Eastern areas, and Dark (higher) clouds lumbering east. When I have to sell this joint (Due to excessive prop taxes) I will be marked to a weather watcher. That is a very interesting activity, and the wind creates some interesting visual changes. (Like rolling waves of the trees on the horizon, similar to desert road heat, but ours is with 60 MPH + winds and temps below 20 F)

Camas smells are worse in Fall and spring, and pretty rare in the past 5 yrs. March & April would be typically rough, and usually in the areas directly west and above. I have lightly smelled the mill, ~ 2x in 16 yrs in east Washougal, but more frequently when on a farm in Hazel Dell (west) circa 1980 - 1995.

I don't even notice it much at my commercial building which is only 1/2 block east of the mill.

[Topaz]

Today my son and I had lunch at a restaurant literally next door to the paper mill in Camas. When we first got there, the smell was really bad and my son was asking what it was. After an hour or so, we couldn't smell it any more. I'm not sure if the wind changed or if we just became accustomed to it!

Topaz

[zeke_voltage]

The Jantzen Beach odor isn't the same as the Camas mill odor. The mill has a sulphur smell and Janzen Beach smells like some kind of hydrocarbon fuel. I grew up in Camas and I know the difference.

[zeke_voltage]

I grew up on Prune Hill in the 70's and 80's. It was WAY better before all the houses came in. Better views, nicer people, hardly any cars. We could play in the street four a half hour before a car would approach. Back when Cascade St. was 230th Ave. Those were the days. And we NEVER smelled the mill.

----------------------

Originally Posted by melpotensky

We just moved here from Bellevue, WA to the Prune Hill section of Camas. The three weeks I have been here, I have yet to smell anything at all. I have had the A/C on only two days but shut it off at night and the air smells just fine to me. We were outside tonight in the cul de sac and I really tried to smell something but everything was great. Now it is windy compared to other areas of the country. In the summer I will use breezy but when the temps dip, windy will define it and I think blustery come February. Pretty area so far. Much different than where I came from. People are friendly and the views are great.

[pastorglen]

I think you are wrong about the winds. Low pressure systems off the Oregon/Washington coasts, pull air from the East to the center of the low pressure and it becomes magnified in the Goge. They may be occasions when the opposite is true, but more often than not, the winds come from East to the West through the Gorge. Why did Camas and Troutdale get ice storms in the Winter? Same reason. Cold air from the Eastern parts of OR/WA is pulled 'westward" through the gorge hitting preciptation from the storms off the Pacific.

[Bilbo]

Regarding the east/west wind in the Gorge: I live in Prindle (a few miles east of Cape Horn), about 50 yards from the water. I've watched the wind on the water quite a bit over the past several years. And it seems to me that it comes from the west at least as often as from the east.

HOWEVER. When people talk about The Wind around here, they are usually talking about the east wind. The west wind is seldom a problem. So, unless you are a wind surfer or boater, you probably don't notice the west wind very much. It's generally the east wind that brings the ice, the snow, the tree damage. (Well, except for infrequent south winds that blow up the Willamette Valley and damage lots of trees that aren't "used to it," but that's another topic.)

So it's the east wind that sticks in the memory around here and makes people think that the prevailing winds are from the east.

Another thing: as has been pointed out, elevation has a lot to do with which way and how hard the wind is blowing on a given day. I've seen it blow west on the water, while it's dead calm here at the house (70 feet above the river, I'm guessing) and blowing hard east just up the hill above highway 14. I've seen "fog trains," one flowing upriver and the other flowing down, crash into each other out over the water near Dalton Point. (Never when I have a loaded camcorder ready, though) And the best effect I've seen is what I call the "parfait" -- a layer (or "train") of clouds or fog moving briskly in one direction over the water, with another layer just above it moving the other way.

I'm going to start keeping a camcorder ready -- someday!