WASHINGTON — CLICK HERE FOR SCHOOL CLOSURES AND DELAYS
KIRO 7’s Pinpoint Meteorologists have called for Pinpoint Alert Days through at least Thursday for a series of weather events.
Flash Flood Warnings are in place around Pacific until 7:45 a.m. because of a levee break on the White River. It’s the second levee break in our area in as many days.
Many areas are grappling with ongoing flooding from last week’s atmospheric river.
Tuesday
It will rain a bit later in the morning, but will increase especially in the afternoon and evening.
Snow levels will be above 5,000 feet so it’ll still be mainly rain Tuesday evening at Stevens Pass until later in the day. In the lowlands, another half inch or more of rain will fall so the afternoon commute will be very wet on Tuesday.
It will become increasingly windy Tuesday afternoon and evening and with a High Wind Warning around Renton south and west, and again from about Everett to the Skagit/Whatcom County border. There is a Wind Advisory in effect for Seattle and areas closer to Bellingham and the San Juans and in the Cascade Foothills. The areas in the High Wind Warning could have gusts at or well over 50 mph, even 55 mph or higher. The Advisory locations could have wind gusts between 40-50 mph. It will be windy this evening, but rapidly increase and peak between around 11 pm Tuesday night to about 4 am Wednesday morning — right when people are sleeping. Power outages and downed trees are very possible.
Colder air is moving in Tuesday night as well and this will cause snow levels to plummet to below 3,000 feet (below Snoqualmie Pass) before daybreak Wednesday.
Wednesday
In the lowlands, we’ll be seeing rain at times on Wednesday and cooler temperatures in the upper 40s to lower 50s. We’ll also likely be dealing with the worst river flooding from this round on Wednesday and possibly into Thursday. The Skagit River at Concrete and Mount Vernon are forecast to be in major flood stage Wednesday, with the Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Skykomish, Skokomish, and Cowlitz rivers expected to be in moderate flood stage on Wednesday. While flooding will be notable, it will not be of the same severity of last week’s flooding. On the Green, White, and Cedar Rivers, we will continue to have flooding through late week and possibly the weekend too from upstream dam releases.
Heavy snow is expected for the mountains and the passes and the snowfall rates could be heavy enough to overwhelm pass plowing operations into Wednesday. Snowfall totals just for Wednesday will be in the 6-12″ range for Snoqualmie Pass, with more on higher passes and slopes — more than a foot. Gusty winds in the mountains could also create whiteout conditions at times, especially Wednesday morning through midday.
Thursday
Another weather system passing by on Thursday could bring gusty winds again to spots, along with more lowland rain and mountain snow.
Into the weekend
A soggy and cool forecast persists Friday into the weekend though lighter precipitation is expected. It’ll stay wet and cool Christmas week as well with several feet more mountain snow through the period likely, and occasionally low snow levels to 1000-1500 feet at times — especially in the morning hours starting this weekend. We might have to watch some foothill locations as well as lowland spots up north for a rain-snow mix at times, but there’s no obvious signal for lowland snow at this time.
Fortunately, after a record warm first half of December, the marked change to a cooler weather pattern and snow in the mountains will mean our river flood and landslide threat will come to an end.
KIRO 7 will have live team coverage of the ongoing flood threat and impacts. Stay with us on-air and online at kiro7.com/flooding.
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