Rain and Flooding

My Skagit River Flooding Adventure, The Week’s Forecast, and Mountain Snow In The Extended

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When I was younger, my mom and I would always explore Seattle and look for the biggest puddles to (safely!) drive through after heavy rain events. We knew all the key spots – Lake Washington Boulevard through the Washington Arboretum always had some rather shallow but very lengthy puddles, and there were also quite a few puddles along the boulevard as it meandered south towards the Denny-Blaine neighborhood. I also remember the spots on my elementary school that were prone to seeing massive puddles, and during rainy days, I’d take every opportunity I could to survey the puddles and compare how big they were to previous rainy days. There’s just something simultaneously adventurous and soothing about playing in the rain.

Inevitably, as my interest in atmospheric science grew, my mother and I graduated from exploring puddles to exploring flooding rivers. Back during the record flooding from November 4-7, 2006 (when Mt. Rainier National Park saw an incredible 18″ of rain in 36 hours), I tried to convince my mom to take me up to Concrete to see the Skagit River. I remember it vividly; It was expected to reach all-time record levels around Tuesday, November 7, around 10pm, and I remember seeing on the news how locals were using sandbags to protect the city from the rising waters. Despite my most valiant efforts, I could not convince her to drive me 3 hours to see a 10pm crest at Concrete on a schoolnight, but I was successful in getting her to drive me to Snoqualmie Falls – a much shorter expedition and a much more dramatic sight.

Ever since then though, I’d always wanted to go see Mt. Vernon and the Skagit River during a major flooding event. And this year, 15 years after my original plea to my mom to take me up to the Skagit, we finally went up together and saw the Skagit at major flood stage. The river was within three feet of topping the flood barrier protecting downtown Mt. Vernon from the river, and it was frightening sight to behold.

Here’s the temporary floodwall protecting the city – water was pouring through the small spaces in the temporary floodwall, and a nearby police officer told us the water crested near the top of the cement barrier earlier in the morning – approximately three feet below the top of the floodwall.

We drove around a bit more after seeing the flooding at Mt. Vernon. There was a lot of farmland with standing water (not necessarily river flooding), but what was more worrisome was just how close the river had come to topping some dikes around neighboring communities. If the river crested just 1-2 feet higher, flooding would have been a lot worse.

And here are some more pictures of flooding around the Skagit that day.

Forecast

After an extremely wet first half of the month, things have really quieted down the past week. I was able to get in a few nice bike rides across the city and went on a nice stroll around Foster Island this past weekend, gently pacing through the sodden earth and taking in the crisp, sunny November air.

But all of that will change this week as we enter yet another period of warmer and wetter-than-average weather that should last through the end of the month, though the storms should be significantly weaker than the ones we saw during the first half of this month.  And while I am NOT expecting widespread flooding at this time, some rivers across Western Washington, especially the flood-prone Skokomish and various north/central Cascade rivers, should reach action stage with a weak atmospheric river that will slowly drag south from southern BC into Western WA, with some potentially seeing minor flooding.

With all of the rain in the mountains, our mountain snowpack is now below-average, and unfortunately, we won’t see much additional snow there below 6,000 feet through the rest of the month. However, models are in pretty good agreement that we’ll transition to a cooler and potentially wetter/windier pattern to begin to December.

This would definitely allow snow to pile up in the mountains, and if these solutions hold, we COULD be talking about skiing at many of the resorts by mid-December, along with continued wind and rain here in the lowlands. I’ll keep you posted!

Charlie

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