Tomorrow - thursday, is going to be a nice day.After that... be ready for a ton of rain in WA and OR over the weekend and into Monday... expect 5" to 10" of rain in parts of western WA and OR.Clickyhttp://cliffmass.blogspot.com/more from Cliff Mass Weather Blog "These precipitation amounts will be sufficient to drive some local rivers to near bankful. The National Weather Service is already warning that a number of rivers will get to "action levels"-- high enough for some mitigation by local agencies. To illustrate, here is the current and predicted flow levels for the Snoqualmie River near Carnation. Anyway, keep tuned as the forecasts are updated...and don't plan a hike over the weekend in western Washington!"

My initial reaction was, 'this is fall, we get heavy rains'. But then I realized that this is still September. But mid October isn't that far off. On Oct 13 last year Cliff Mass was talking about similar amountshttp://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-faucet-turns-on.htmland Oct 9, 2010http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2010/10/heavy-rains.htmlIn 2003, it was an Oct 20 storm that damaged many forest service roads. But other record breaking wet days in Seattle were in Nov and Dechttp://www.seattleweatherblog.com/rain-stats/North Cascades Highway (WA20) has already had 2 closures this year due to mud flows. Though in those cases it was relatively localized thurderstorms that produced floods.

On the bright side the weather predictions in the NorthWest tend to be some of the Worst on the planet.

Being a professional "weather guesser" (meteorologist) must be the most frustrating job on the planet. All that education and training and the weather still does what it wants. Weatherbase.Com is as good a tool as any to get info on weather averages by month over a number of years for temps, precipitation, etc. for many cities within each state in the past. But its still just history.Flagstaff and Phoenix are only 150 miles apart, but they certainly have different weather because of altitude. Washington and Oregon have relatively mild weather considering their northern latitude. If all that rain was snow, they'd be buried from December to March.Its lucky for us RVers that we can bring clothing for most all weather conditions.

When I moved here in 2001 I had NEVER seen rain like we had that fall. My hubby called it "Vietnam" rain - torrential. We moved from Idaho and they had been in a drought cycle for about 10 yrs. It was an eye opener..LOL When we were unloading the rental truck we had it's ramp down and into the garage opening about 3'. We had to stop unloading because the rain was sheeting down the ramp soo hard it was starting to flood the garage. That happened several times too AND it would settle in like that for a couple days. I do agree that we usually don't see heavy rain until the 3rd week in October, but this has been a crazy fall. A few days of 70° then a few days of liquid sunshine. Gotta luv Mother Nature....

Warm then lots of rain.... or why my lawn is growing like it's spring.Yup, wonderful summer, warm, not stinking hot, few cool days, few cool nights and now the rains have came early

Unusual Sept Weather - HEAVY rains coming WA & OR

34 Replies

paulj
Explorer II
Oct 02, 2013
US12 over White Pass is closed to through traffic. There was a washout on the EB shoulder a few miles east of the summit.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/
The_Dung_Beetle
Explorer
Oct 01, 2013
louiskathy...
Yes.. several areas got it a lot worse then we did! I saw that about the tornado. I also wonder what the rest of the winter holds for us.

mocktuttle
I really did send your NOAA post to everyone locally and posted it to my FB page. It was appreciated. We tend to get lackadaisical about the weather in Sept as it's usually pretty mild despite the occasional "weather guessers" warnings. This was a big storm, and your post kicked us into gear. We spent about an hour securing the yards and taking down the flags. We went and turned our NOAA radio on after your post, and because of our silly location ALL I could pull up was a Canadian station. We could see them getting blasted. It was blacker then the Ace of Spades to the North.
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louiskathy
Explorer
Oct 01, 2013
Tornado touched down in Fredrickson, WA during the storm in NW yesterday
clicky

Not a big one by any measure - but enough to topple some railroad cars and do some damage to area houses and cars.

Let's hope October does not bring any more "unusual" weather.

It was a moderate storm by us and then got a little rough last night around 4pm to 7pm. Portland is 40 miles south of us and Seattle is 100 miles north. We had less of a storm than either of them.
mockturtle
Explorer II
Oct 01, 2013
Glad you came out unscathed, DB!
The_Dung_Beetle
Explorer
Sep 30, 2013
We were prepared for the worst, but on a scale of 1- 10 we got hit with about a 7. Experienced some pretty relentless driving rain, but only a few big gusts that creaked the house in the middle of the night. Our trees are all standing, and I didn't have to run a debris gauntlet when I drove out of here this morning. That happens a few times a winter, and sometimes I can't get out if a lg enough tree lays down in the road. I'll take it!

Again, I appreciate the *heads up* weather posts. Thanks!

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paulj
Explorer II
Sep 30, 2013
Now they are talking about some snow accumulation by Tuesday AM above 4000' - that would be Stevens Pass, North Cascades, and near alpine visitor centers on Hurricane Ridge, Mt Baker and Mt Rainier.

I haven't seen many road closures due to the weekend storms. Rivers all started out low, so none rose beyond flood stage. WSDOT had a few temporary downed-trees closures in the SW part of the state, e.g on US12.

wet snowy Paradise
The_Dung_Beetle
Explorer
Sep 29, 2013
One can only hope...

I'm heading out to lay down the patio furniture, latch gates etc.

The mountains often bounce the worst of the weather away from us, but NOT ALWAYS.

poof*
.
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mockturtle
Explorer II
Sep 29, 2013
The Dung Beetles wrote:
mockturtle -

Thank you so much.. dang! I'm reposting your report on my Facebook page to my family, neighbors and locals. This area out here is also heavily wooded. The trees come down like tinker toys and knock our power out fast.

We are about as northern shore as it gets for WA state. We are about 100 yrd off a 200' cliff that faces Canada. Thanks again for the updated heads up!

Appreciatively,

Felicia
You're welcome. Hope it won't be as bad as forecast.
The_Dung_Beetle
Explorer
Sep 29, 2013
mockturtle -

Thank you so much.. dang! I'm reposting your report on my Facebook page to my family, neighbors and locals. This area out here is also heavily wooded. The trees come down like tinker toys and knock our power out fast.

We are about as northern shore as it gets for WA state. We are about 100 yrd off a 200' cliff that faces Canada. Thanks again for the updated heads up!

Appreciatively,

Felicia
mockturtle
Explorer II
Sep 29, 2013
Maybe you folks in Sequim will be protected from this (just in from the NOAA):

.EXPLOSIVE DEVELOPMENT IS TAKING PLACE WITH A LOW PRESSURE CENTER
THAT WILL MAKE LANDFALL THIS EVENING SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE FAR
NORTH WASHINGTON COAST AND CENTRAL VANCOUVER ISLAND THIS EVENING.
THIS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE ONE OF THE STRONGEST SEPTEMBER
WINDSTORMS ON RECORD. NORTHWEST WASHINGTON...FROM THE NORTH COAST
THROUGH THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE NORTH INTERIOR...WILL
BE AT THE GREATEST RISK FROM THE STRONGEST WINDS.