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< Back to Currently For the past couple of weeks or so, we've been having some
pretty spectacular rain... while most everyone would say "So? Its
Seattle, and you say that every winter!", this time its different... we're
getting hard rain. We got 5 inches of rain in 24 hours, a
new record, which has stood since the 1950's. In two months, we
broke the longest stretch of time of sunny warm days, and the most rain in
a single day! I wonder what else is in store for us???
Here's some pictures I garnished off the local news and what-not... it
should give you an idea of how the weather has been affecting us...
October 20th Along the Skagit River (which is where I was a
couple of weeks ago, looking for salmon), the valley fell victim to the
flood waters... this is pretty normal for the area, though... the locals
are used to it.
Over the weekend, the flooding was pretty serious.
Just as the flood waters were starting to to recede Sunday, the
National Weather Service said many rivers in Western Washington might
overflow again late Monday or Tuesday, when the region was due for more
heavy rain. For once, the weather men were right on: we got
dumped on...
"The main concern will be the south- and west-facing slopes of the
Olympics and the west slopes of the Northern Cascades," said Naeemah
Cushmeer, an agency forecaster in Seattle.
Rather than fight through the culvert, this salmon went
across the road, where the water wasn't quite so fast...
This is how it looked... Sort of an easy one to say!
| TODAY |
TONIGHT |
TUESDAY |
TUESDAY
NIGHT |
WEDNESDAY |
WEDNESDAY
NIGHT
and
THURSDAY |
Rain |
Rain |
Rain
Likely |
Rain |
Rain
Likely |
Showers
Likely |
| Hi 68°F |
Lo 58°F |
Hi 65°F |
Lo 52°F |
Hi 58°F |
Hi 58°F
Lo 45°F |
The weather service issued a flood watch late Sunday afternoon for
rivers in Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Clallam, Mason, Snohomish, Skagit
and Whatcom counties.
 The
Skokomish, Nooksack and Skagit rivers -- which overflowed Friday and
Saturday -- were deemed most likely to spill over their banks, causing
lowland flooding.
This girl doesn't seem too concerned as she makes her way across the
street... this happens every spring... while its odd to have it happen
in the fall, too... the flooding itself is pretty old news.
Forecasters were predicting another round of high winds with the
incoming Pacific frontal system, though they said at the time that it
wouldn't be as bad as
last week's.... but it was.
HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
500 AM PDT MON OCT 20 2003
THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL PARTS
OF WESTERN WASHINGTON
...A FLOOD WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR RIVERS FLOWING OFF THE OLYMPICS
AND THE WEST SLOPES OF THE NORTH CASCADES...
...GALE WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT FOR THE COAST... ENTRANCES TO THE
STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA... ADMIRALTY INLET...AND THE NORTHERN INLAND
WATERS FROM CAMANO ISLAND TO POINT ROBERTS... |
By Friday, it was looking pretty bad up this way. Roads were
closed all over the place, and basically everywhere you looked, there was
water. The dry ground soaked up quite a bit at first, but after 8
days of rain, it was mostly run-off, and the rivers, designed by nature to
shed water quickly, were filling up.
It rained, fairly hard, all weekend. It slacked off a bit on
Sunday, giving everyone a bit of a break.
The National Weather Service issued several flood warnings (the one on
the 20th is on the right), and the news was pretty interesting for a
couple of days...
October 21
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The rain really kicked up Monday and Monday night... all over Western
Washington, road were closing, reports of mudslides were all over the
area, and flooding rivers became the norm. Several roads - some
which had been in existence for years - completely were washed out. A little bit of rain...
Highway 112 is the only paved road to and from Neah Bay (which is
above the US 101 sign to the left of Port Angeles in the above map)... A
sinkhole has developed there, washing out the entire roadway... Here,
the DOT has a sense of humor (its a little bigger than a bump, I'd
say)...
Here's the view from the other side...
 
This eerily similar picture is along US 20, near Darrington
(which is about where the I-5 sign is between Everett and Bellingham)...
Not far from the above washout, a culvert got clogged with
debris... here's what the road looked liked after they cleared the
blockage...
These pictures are from Highway 12, near Shelton (which is near the
US 12 sign to the left of Olympia)
 
 
Here's some pics along US-2, where the Skagit River
(which is where I went the weekend before last, up through Skykomish -
in the yellow and red area to the left of the US 2 sign)
has flooded the valley leading up to Stevens Pass...
 
 
Here's some shots from KIRO-7 News Channel of flooding around
Seattle... Left to right, top to bottom: A bride near Vancouver, BC
washed out, stranding people at a major ski area (Whistler Mountain -
where the 2008 Winter Olympics will be); The sign on a Tully's coffee
shop in Seattle; The inside of the Tully's that got flooded; an
overloaded drainwater pipe pushes up a manhole cover in downtown
Seattle.
 
 
October 22 The report for Wednesday wasn't much better: the rains
had slowed, but the damage was done. Almost every stream along
the Western edge of the Cascades went over its banks at some point...
massive damage was done to more than a few roads...
| Volunteers
filled sandbags in a desperate effort to stop the rising Skagit
River in the hours before it surged over its banks and into the
town of Mount Vernon.
 Meanwhile,
Skagit County officials evacuated people from low-lying areas near
the river -- including portions of West Mount Vernon, the
Riverbend area and Fir Island, near Conway -- ahead of the coming
flood crest.
Officials asked businesses in Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro
Woolley to close early to give workers time to get home in
daylight hours.
The National Weather Service said the river would hit ten feet
above flood stage!
 Volunteers
assembled to sandbag around the downtown courthouse and the
revetments that protect against high water on the Skagit, which
threatens to flood nearly every winter but also waters some of the
lushest farmland in the state. The Skagit River's low-lying delta,
home to truck farms, dairies and tulip growers, is protected by an
extensive series of dikes.
 An
Army helicopter from Fort Lewis was dispatched late Monday night
to rescue a man who was stranded at a house near Darrington in
Snohomish County but turned back because of foul weather. The man
was rescued by boat about 4 a.m. that night, said Mark Clemens, a
spokesman at the state Emergency Operations Center.
A boat also was deployed to reach a family at a house by the south
fork of the Stillaguamish River near Granite Falls.
U.S. 2 was closed through the Cascades after a rockslide hit a car
Monday night just west of Stevens Pass, said Robert Smith, a State
Patrol communications officer. No one was injured but car-sized
boulders blocked the westbound lanes and part of the eastbound
lanes.
One lane of the highway remained closed Tuesday.
 The
rainfall reading at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was a
calendar-day record with 4.86 inches by 11 p.m., well over the old
mark of 3.41 inches on Nov. 20, 1959, the Weather Service said.
Rainfall records at the site date to 1931.
By 5 p.m. Monday, when rain began tapering off in most areas,
24-hour totals included 6.52 inches for Bremerton, 5.93 inches for
Shelton and 4.53 inches for Hoquiam, the Weather Service said.
In 1990, 20 rivers flooded in Western Washington, displacing
thousands of people and doing $160 million in damage.
 Several
roads remained closed because of flood damage and slides from last
week's storm.
Washington 20, the North Cascades Highway, was closed after slides
deposited "rocks as big as Volkswagens" and debris 10 to 15 feet
deep, state Transportation Department spokeswoman Jamie Holter
said. The road is closed annually for the winter, but this was the
earliest closure on record.
Washington 112, the only paved road to the Makah Indian
Reservation at the northwest tip of the Olympic Peninsula, was
severed by a sinkhole 50 feet deep and 142 feet long just east of
the reservation. Repairs were expected to cost $90,000 to
$100,000.
 Repairs
to the roadway were expected to last about 4 days.
Arrangements were made for an emergency detour over a one-lane
logging road, and there were deliveries of groceries, gasoline and
mail on Monday, tribal Chairman Nathan Tyler said.
Scenes of SR-410
 
 
 |
October 24 Friday,
the news of the day was the damage the storm did to our two local
National Parks... Mt Rainier National Park, and Olympic National
Park... Both were heavily damaged... Here's what The Oregonian
had to say about it. |
|
Rainier, Olympic parks suffer major damage as
campgrounds, trails, roads bear the brunt of
record rainfalls
|
| Pat O'Nolan of Auburn walks past a
washed-out section of road at the Sunshine Point
Campground in Mount Rainier National Park on Wednesday
afternoon. About 120 feet of protective dike and 90 feet
of road were washed away. "I guess that blows my camping
plans for the weekend," O'Nolan said. |
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| Some trails and roads at Mount Rainier --
such as this road to the Longmire suspension bridge --
have been closed because of damage from heavy rains. The
majority of the park, however, remains open. |
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| National Park Service employees stop
Wednesday evening to view the washed-out road at Sunshine
Point Campground in Mount Rainier National Park. Boulders
are being placed along the bank to prevent the comfort
station from being undercut by the Nisqually River. |
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| Roads Affected
- SR 106, Mason County: Both directions west of Union
open to local traffic only due to mudslide.
- SR 410, Pierce County: Closed due to flooding and
rockslides from Crystal Mountain Blvd. to Cayuse Pass. The road
might not reopen until next spring.
- SR 20, Skagit County: Mudslides, water block highway
from Marblemount to East Star.
On the Web
Mount Rainier National Park:
www.nps.gov/mora
On the Web
National Weather Climate Prediction Center:
www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov |
Heavy rain during the past week turned roads into
riverbeds and washed out other roads, bridges and trails at Mount
Rainier and Olympic national parks.
Preliminary estimates put damage between $500,000 and $1 million at
Mount Rainier, but that figure is far from final.
Olympic National Park's famed Hoh Rain Forest is cut off from
visitors, as floodwaters washed out much of Hoh Rain Forest Road.
"The Hoh River is now flowing where the road used to be," said Barb
Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
At Mount Rainier, almost 3 inches of warm rain fell on 10 inches of
new snow in the past week, and the resulting floodwaters closed state
Route 410 from the north park boundary to Cayuse Pass.
"The White River changed course, and part of the river is now
running on the highway," said Randy King, deputy superintendent.
That section of Route 410 won't open soon, King said.
The Crystal Mountain ski resort, which is near Route 410, was not
cut off from Western Washington by the flood, spokeswoman Stacy
Schuster said.
Floodwaters also wreaked havoc with these Mount Rainier National
Park areas:
- Sunshine Point Campground: The campground, which is near
the southwest park entrance, was closed after the Nisqually River
washed away 120 feet of a protective dike and 90 feet of pavement.
- Westside Road: The road is closed a mile above Dry Creek
due to fast-moving water crossing the road.
- Kautz Creek: Parts of the scenic viewpoint were lost to
high water, and the boardwalk is closed. The raging waters washed away
the rock walls that protect the Kautz Creek Bridge footings, but the
bridge remains open. This part of the park is on the road from
Nisqually to Paradise, which remains open.
- Longmire: A 120-foot section of road between the
suspension bridge and the Community Building was washed away. The side
road is closed.
- Carbon River area: Many of the footbridges are destroyed
or under water. Carbon River Road remains open.
- Wonderland Trail: All footlogs on the trail between Cougar
Rock and Narada Falls are washed out.
- Comet Falls Trail: The first footbridge up the trail was
washed away, and the trail is closed.
- Carter Falls: Footlogs at the trailhead are gone.
Most of Mount Rainier National Park remains open to visitors, King
said.
Park officials have checked for stranded hikers and found no one,
King said.
It's unclear when repairs will begin, King said.
"We're still trying to determine the extent of the damage, and
we're readying interim and long-term solutions," King said.
At Olympic
Heavy rains -- 14 inches from Oct. 16 to Tuesday -- washed out
major roads in Olympic National Park.
The North Shore Road at Quinault Lake is closed 2 miles east of
U.S. Highway 101 because of a washout. A temporary bridge is on the
way to restore access to the road, Maynes said.
"This is our first priority because this road serves a community,"
Maynes said.
Sol Duc Road, which serves Sol Duc Hot Springs, is partially washed
out in two places and is closed, Maynes said.
Most of the park remains open to visitors, Maynes said.
Park officials don't have an estimate of repair costs.
Rain in Western Washington was heavy at times Wednesday, but the
two national parks will get a break, said Allen Cam, a Seattle-based
National Weather Service meteorologist.
There will be showers today, and the weekend looks dry, Cam said.
"They'll get some rain," Cam said of today's weather. "But it's not
going to be one of those situations where the rain goes on for most of
the day." |
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