WEATHER: West Coast Blow

In the early evening, Seattle thermometers registered 62°—second highest December temperature in the city's history.

Then big blobs of rain began falling. Soon a wind whipped the raindrops around. The wind rose, went on rising.

On Olympic Peninsula the wind reached hurricane velocity of 85 miles an hour, highest since the big blow of 1920. All over the Northwest trees and power lines crashed to earth: 20 towns were without electricity until next forenoon; two brothers were electrocuted when a wire fell on to their automobile. On one 100-mile stretch of Oregon highway,...