Hatten the batches!
“A VERY serious storm is going to hit the Northwest during the next two days,” warns UW meteorologist Cliff Mass, “one that will cause flooding and coastal wind damage. And the urban areas are going to experience a deluge.”
Weather models are showing the mountains will get five to ten inches of rain, while “Seattle will get nearly 4-5 inches if this forecast verifies,” says Mass. Rivers are going to flood, and if you know anyone in the Chehalis-Centralia basin, you may want to tell them to move valuables to the attic, and keep the camcorder charged up. But it’s not just torrential rain: The Washington and Oregon coasts will see strong winds, claim the models.
The Seattle forecast from the National Weather Service has just upgraded our chances of getting hit by high winds:
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SEATTLE HAS ISSUED A HIGH WIND WARNING … WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO NOON PST TUESDAY. THE HIGH WIND WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
- WIND … SOUTH WIND 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 45 MPH THIS MORNING … EASING AROUND NOON. SOUTHEAST WIND RISING THIS EVENING TO 30 TO 40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 60 MPH.
- TIMING … LOCALLY DAMAGING WINDS ARE POSSIBLE BETWEEN 7 PM THIS EVENING AND NOON TUESDAY … WITH THE STRONGEST WINDS LIKELY BETWEEN 10 PM THIS EVENING AND 7 AM TUESDAY.
- IMPACTS … WINDS THIS STRONG CAN SNAP TREE BRANCHES…TOPPLE TREES THAT ARE BIG ENOUGH TO DAMAGE HOMES OR CARS OR SEVERELY INJURE PEOPLE … AND CAUSE POWER OUTAGES.
“I’m going to call this morning’s storm Storm #1 because we have several more to go as the week progresses,” writes KOMO’s Paul Deanna. “Storm #2 arrives as soon as tonight:”
This second storm will bring even stronger wind–and even heavier rain–to our area overnight and on Tuesday. This front will stall right over us, keeping the steady-to-heavy rain around for 24 hours or longer. As a result, the NWS Seattle office has issued a Flood Watch for all rivers flowing out of the Olympic Mountains through Wednesday.
In one swell foop, we should go from being 30-percent-below-average precipitation for November, to above-average. The combination of heavy rain and high winds is usually a guarantee of at least power outages, as the waterlogged ground lets trees uproot more easily. Also be prepared for your Amtrak trip to to involve buses: Lately any amount of rain has brought about mudslides somewhere along the tracks. Of course, if I-5 floods down by Chehalis then buses are out, too.