71 MPH Wind Gust Reported At Dulles Airport

An extraordinary wind gust of 71 miles per hour was recorded at Dulles International Airport on Friday, according to a report -- winds nearly as strong as a Category 1 hurricane.

The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang tweeted out a list of the highest wind gusts from Friday's Nor'easter that has caused widespread power outages, and while Dulles was nowhere near the strongest, it still saw some intense winds.

The minimum threshold for a hurricane is 74 miles per hour, and Dulles missed that by just three mph (as a caveat, that 74 mph threshold must be sustained winds in order for a storm to be classified as a hurricane, whereas the 71 mph recorded at Dulles was just a brief gust).

Reagan National Airport was also hit hard, recording a 66 mph wind gust.

Points north of D.C. were hit harder than our area. Barnstable, Mass. topped the list with an astonishing 93 mph wind gust -- a Category 2 hurricane has minimum sustained winds of 96 mph, as a comparison. Other spots in Massachusetts saw gusts in the 80s and low 90s.

Nor'easter wind gusts:

Barnstable, Mass. — 93 mph
East Fallmouth, Mass. — 92 mph
Nantucket — 90 mph
Woods Hole, Mass. — 88 mph
Scituate, Mass. — 80 mph
Dulles — 71 mph
JFK Airport — 67 mph
Boston — 66 mph
D.C. — 66 mphhttps://t.co/hzFZ94OL45
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) March 3, 2018

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)