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High winds with strong gusts have been buffeting the Portland area today, knocking down trees and power lines all over the region, and in one case blowing an 18-wheel tractor-trailer off Northeast Marine Drive.
Portland International Airport has been recording sustained winds of 29 miles per hour out of the southwest, with gusts up to 55 miles per hour (at 58 miles per hour, property damage can occur, according to the National Weather Service).
But airport spokeswoman Kama Simonds says the blustery day isn't enough to keep planes from landing at PDX.
While video footage abounds of airliners wrestling with unforgiving winds, Simonds said that the airport usually doesn't forbid planes to attempt landings in windy conditions.
"Whether they land at PDX [and] what runway they choose to land on is a discussion that takes place between the pilot and the [air traffic control] tower," she said, adding that pilots will have already been given weather notices by the time they arrive to land.
Simonds said that a number of aircraft were using the airport's crosswind runway, which runs north to south—perpendicular to the airport's two main runways.
That runway is used less often than the other two, she said, usually for smaller cargo traffic.
"We have all of our runways open and operational," she adds.
Steve Johnson, a spokesman for the Port of Portland, says that there's no wind speed threshold beyond which the airport might turn traffic away.
"It's really up to the pilot and the air traffic controllers to decide if they want to operate," he says. "We've seen airlines operate just fine here in what are pretty high winds."
Willamette Week