Strong Santa Ana winds caused problems Wednesday morning on some mountain roads in the county and forced the closure of several schools.
The gusty winds of up to 75 MPH prompted a National Weather Service-issued High Wind Warning for the inland and mountain areas of the county through Wednesday morning set until 4 p.m.
The National Weather Service sent out a tweet about an unusually strong wind gust."At 106 miles per hour, Sill Hill (a very windy location in the San Diego County Mountains), is at least close to, and may be the highest wind gust ever measured in San Diego County. The wind gust occurred at 1:50 AM on 2/26/2020 during a Santa Ana Wind."
The High Wind Warning for the mountains was expected to be downgraded at 4 p.m. to a Wind Advisory, with wind speeds dropping 10-20 MPH. A wind advisory was expected to remain in effect until Noon Thursday.
The windy conditions led to a rollover crash involving a big rig on Interstate 8 in the Alpine area early Wednesday morning. Several hours later, at around 6:20 a.m., the California Highway Patrol reported another semi-truck on its side -- presumably due to the strong winds -- on the Buckman Springs Road off-ramp from eastbound I-8.
The Mountain Empire Unified School District closed all of its schools for the day, citing high winds and power outages.
(Photo credit 10News of big rig crash)