The Pineapple Express is coming to town. And that rarely means anything good for the northwest except for people who like it really wet and windy.
This is our KOIN Local 6 in-house RainCast for 9am Monday. Places like Portland, Vancouver, Salem and Newport will be under a Pacific firehose that, in meteorology, we call an ‘atmospheric river.’ It’s a setup that allows a lot of mild rain to get pumped into our skies very quickly.
Heavy Rain Starts Later Sunday
You can see the estimated rain totals as of 4pm Sunday — not much!
But look at the estimated rain totals just 27 hours later — at 7pm Monday. The closer this is to accurate the greater the risk of localized flooding in the Willamette Valley because of clogged and overloaded storm drains. Urban streams are also at risk, too. And odds of small river flooding among rivers coming off the Coast Range and Cascades are also going up fast.
Gusty Winds Likely, Power Outages Possible
Our WindCast estimates winds to about 30mph with occasional gusts to 40mph on Sunday night. (Note:Â wind forecasts are very tricky!) Â Along the Coast, gusts should reach high-wind status and top 60mph.
At times on Monday, it appears even stronger winds will hit. In the Willamette Valley winds in the 30-35mph range and possible gusts to 50mph. Coastal gusts should easily reach the hurricane wind gust category, topping 74mph, possibly by quite a bit. (note: wind forecasts are tricky!)
I always take our windcasts with a grain of salt. So many minor shifts in a system’s postition or strength or other factors can decrease windspeeds. But anything in the range we’re talking about here will bring down scattered trees and knock out some power. I like to call it the ‘ol 1-2 punch: soak those soils, then kick up the wind. One of mother nature’s favorites!
Two other things:
- Slides are always possible in Oregon & Washington when this much rain falls for so long — our KOIN Local 6 Newsroom is on watch for those
- The snow level hits at least 7,000′ on Monday – so I believe this Monday system, overall, is bad news when it comes to getting things up and running on the mountain. Thankfully, somewhat cooler systems follow later this week.
I’m doing my usual things before the storm moves in: checking the batteries in the flashlights and filling the cars with gas. If we still have power–oh, well–at least the kids can play with the flashlights now and the cars are full and ready for the coming week!
Bruce: We have had approximately an inch of rain here in the past 27 hours. It’s probably less than yours because when we get strong southerly winds here, we get the edge of the olympic mountain’s rainshadow