Emergency responders from across Lewis County will gather next month to prepare for a winter that could bring the ever-constant threat of flooding to Western Washington.
The annual flood meeting, which will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. on Oct. 17, will take place at Jester’s Auto Museum and Event Center, located at 321 Hamilton Road in Chehalis. The event brings together elected officials, law enforcement, emergency services, real estate agents, engineers, insurance agents, the National Weather Service (NWS) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prepare for the upcoming flood season.
Members of the public are also invited to attend, as the meeting will feature discussions on flood preparedness and other safety topics.
The meeting will come ahead of a winter where the NWS predicts a La Niña weather pattern will hold until the spring. In a Sept. 12 forecast, the NWS said the weather pattern, which typically brings cooler and wetter conditions to the West Coast, has a 71% chance of emerging between September and November and “is expected” to remain through March 2025.
According to the NWS, the La Niña is currently expected to be “weak.”
“A weaker La Niña implies that it would be less likely to result in conventional winter impacts, though predictable signals could still influence the forecast guidance,” the NWS stated.
Last year, forecasters from the NWS predicted an El Niño winter, which is associated with warmer and drier conditions.
According to the NWS, a La Niña is a weather pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean when the sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are cooler than normal.
The cooler waters push the polar jet stream northward, which can cause drought in the southern U.S. and heavy rains and flooding in the Pacific Northwest and Canada.
Learn more about Lewis County Emergency Management at https://lewiscountywa.gov/departments/emergency-management/.
