Northwest Storms

Noon Top Stories... Portland KGW

This news update will give you some idea of what is going on.
Hwy 101 won't be open until Sunday.
I-5 might have one lane open later but with rain still falling who knows for how long.

Hwy 30 has slides on it and flooding...and there is a gas leak on Hwy 30 by St. John's Bridge that has closed it down. (The ground is so wet that it's moving... one home in Woodland exploded and burned in two hours.) Hwy 30 is being used as a detour for north bound traffic out of Portland. They come up hwy 30 to the Lewis & Clark bridge, cross over to Longview and then continue North on I-5.

I-5 is open going north from Longview but the Centralia area is flooded very badly so that could change if more rain falls.

WA DOT has a blog page that is giving more up to the minute info than 511 ...WA DOT Blogspot

drought! what drought ? what we need is rust repellant

Yes, and I5 closed North Bound about 20 miles into Washington, by rock and mud slide. WDOT working on plan to divert one lane of South bound I5 to North Bound, but this is the area where the RR North/ South Main Line runs in the median!!

Reports of a tornado touching down in Battle Ground about noon today!

It has been downright nasty, we are so glad we moved away from the coast. As it is, we are getting extremely mild weather here in south central BC, right now it is 6C over 40F.

http://wsdotblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/heavy-rain-high-winds-and-snow-on-its.html


The closures on US12 around White Pass seem to be the most serious, since they involve washouts on shelf road.

The main US2 closures are in Tumwater Canyon, so there is the Chumstick detour for cars.

The I5 closure is between Portland and Vancouver. There are detours but they can't handle a lot of traffic. When I looked last night, US30 on the Oregon side of the river also had closures. Freight traffic was being directed up the east side of the Cascades.

There were other closures in NW Oregon.

Here in the South Sound: Tuesday 3 inches; Wednesday 1+ inch; today; midnight to 10 am 1.4 inch and it is still raining buckets.

Yes indeed, we are taking a real pounding here in the beautiful Northwest!

They call it a "Pineapple Express."
Sounds like some kind of drink I should be enjoying while sitting on a Hawaiian beach.
If I wanted to be underwater, I'd go scuba diving!
Enough already.

My goodness. When living there I remember the Snoqualmie would flood almost every year. An inch a day.. that's amazing. Stay high my friend!