A windy day in Portland left thousands without power Sunday, and a downed power line briefly closed a stretch of Interstate 84.

Nearly 8,000 Portland General Electric customers were without power in Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties Sunday just afternoon. Some of those outages were weather-related, a PGE spokesperson confirmed, and some were still under investigation.

“Today has definitely been windy,” Rebecca Muessle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, said Sunday.

While the strongest winds were at the “leading edge” of a cold front that moved into the area Sunday morning, Muessle said, gusts would continue until Sunday night.

“High terrain today and along the coast saw some really gusty conditions,” she said, with a maximum high wind gust in Astoria measured at 43 mph and a maximum high wind gust near Garibaldi measured at 45 mph.

In Portland, things weren’t much calmer, however. Muessle said the highest wind gust measured near the Portland Airport was 40 mph, with more of them registering in the 25 to 30 mph range.

1216pm: It's been a wee bit blustery today, hasn't it? Winds have been almost as gusty inland as along the coast. Here are the top gusts across NW Oregon and SW Washington thus far. #pdxtst #orwx #wawx pic.twitter.com/BquoOO13Wa — NWS Portland (@NWSPortland) February 23, 2020

“Winds are going to stay up through a good chunk of today,” she added.

It wasn’t just Portland and the coast dealing with high winds. The Oregon Department of Transportation reported Sunday afternoon that I-84 was closed in both directions between exits 216 east of Pendleton and 265 in La Grande after a power line went down near Meacham.

I-84 reopened around 2 p.m., though the westbound off-ramp at exit 216 remained closed.

Beaverton police noted on Twitter that traffic lights were out at Southwest Canyon Road and Canyon Lane, reminding drivers that when a signal is out, you must treat the signal as a stop sign.

Officers are enforcing traffic laws at SW Canyon Rd at SW Canyon Ln where the traffic lights are out. The law requires you to stop if a traffic signal is out. We are hoping to reduce crashes at the intersection until power is restored. pic.twitter.com/h9ln0agDnn — Beaverton Police (@BeavertonPolice) February 23, 2020

The good news is the winds are expected to weaken around 10 p.m. and die down overnight, Muessle said. And the rest of the week a high-pressure system could help you forget this windy Sunday.

“You can expect clear skies,” Muessle said. “You can expect higher temperatures.”

How high? Towards the end of the week “anywhere mid-50s to upper 50s to low 60s,” Muessle said, though she issued a caveat.

“After Wednesday,” she said, “our numbers are less exact.”

Still, as it stands now, warmer and less windy weather does appear out there on the horizon, not too far off.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

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