Northwest braces for high winds after rare Oregon twisters

(Reuters) - The U.S. Northwest was bracing for hurricane-force winds and heavy rain as the remnants of a typhoon move onshore on Saturday, a day after rare tornadoes clobbered the Oregon coast.

The National Weather Service issued high wind warnings from Northern California to British Columbia ahead of the storm expected to pound the region during the afternoon and evening.

Winds of up to 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour), high waves and up to 2 inches (5 cm) of rain were forecast for the northern Oregon and southern Washington coast as the shreds of Typhoon Songda headed to shore.

"If you don't need to be out and about during the period of high winds, certainly stay home," said Matthew Cullen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Portland, Oregon.

He warned that residents should be prepared for flooding, downed trees and power outages. The high winds and rain are expected to linger in the region into early next week.

Western Washington is expected to receive wind gusts of 70 mph (112 kph), with heavy rain. Seattle has posted two days of rain totaling 3.11 inches (7.9 cm) from a first round of Songda, more than an inch more than totals for July through September, the weather service said.

During a gap on Friday between storm systems, the Oregon coastal communities of Manzanita and Oceanside were hit by two waterspouts that came ashore as tornadoes.

The Manzanita twister destroyed four buildings and damaged about 120, but no injuries were reported, Cullen said. The storm was rated 2, the second-lowest rating on the five-step Enhanced Fujita scale, with winds of up to 130 mph (210 kph), and there were no reports of damage from the Oceanside tornado.

The weather service's Portland office issued 10 tornado warnings on Friday versus only 13 in total between 1986 and 2015, it said on its Twitter feed.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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