Winds that materialized seemingly instantly just before 9 PM have quickly transformed a warm June night on Capitol Hill. The heavy hot air has been blown away by a series of strong gusts that rattle trees and living spaces and have filled the evening with the sounds of emergency sirens, popping transformers and other peculiar noises. Around 9:50 PM, not long after a ‘pop’ sound, St. Joe’s bells chimed. Once.

Seattle PI notes how dramatic and weird the shift in weather was across the area:

The temperature dropped an incredible 16 degrees in one hour at Sea-Tac, and winds went from a sultry 6 mph to 23 mph with a recorded gust of almost 36 mph.

The National Weather Service’s forecast discussion page indicates the agency’s current thinking that this is just a wind event, and that the thunderstorms that swept through Oregon earlier today are not expected to re-emerge in the Puget Sound area.

UPDATE: Cliff Mass called it at 8:22 PM. And explains it all.

Power is reportedly out in some areas of Seattle but no outages are yet reported on Capitol Hill. Here is the windstorm report from West Seattle Blog detailing the outage that has left nearly 3,000 homes and businesses without power.
UPDATE: Brief outage reported by kinkos in the comments:

So far, the emergency incidents on Capitol Hill have been relatively minor with no reports, yet, of downed wires like in other parts of the city. There has been a rash of medic response call outs in the last hour but none appear to be directly related to the storm. There was also a car vs. pedestrian accident reported around 9:15 PM at 11th and E. Pike. The vehicle left the scene and officers are looking for a car with California plates. No medic was dispatched to the scene.

Emergency personnel are also being kept busy with home and building security and fire alarms being automatically triggered by the strong winds.

Let us know what you’re seeing in your part of the Hill.