Updated: Record Rain but Little Flooding

Following a weekend of heavy wind and rain, the threat of flooding has passed.

According to the National Weather Service, a strong cold front that came ashore Sunday night is improving weather conditions as it pushes inland today and overnight into tomorrow.

That front drives away two unseasonably strong rain storms, according to Weather Service Meteorologist Johnny Burg.

“For this time of year, this is a lot of rain,” Burg said. “Usually we can probably see this amount of rain during the November, December timeframe. This is quite unusual.”

According to unofficial data, Centralia broke a 32-year-old record with a reported 1.69 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. The previous record was .83 inches, Burg said.

Weather gages, over a 48-hour period, measured rainfall at 2.49 inches in Chehalis, 3 inches in Centralia, 3.9 inches in Packwood, 3.2 inches in Cinebar and 2.66 inches in Onalaska

Wind at the the Chehalis Airport was recorded at more than 40 mph.

The unexpected drenching challenged the preparedness of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office and the Public Utilities District, according to Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield.

“We had a busy weekend,” Mansfield said Monday. “This was a good opportunity for people to dust off their plans.”

The PUD spent its weekend fixing power outages throughout the county.

“The boys were busy all weekend,” PUD Communications Liaison Corenne Moses said Monday. “The outages were spotty and were from the Elbe, Ashford area to Vader to some in Doty, a couple in Chehalis, Toledo and Winlock.”

“I truly think the only place that didn’t go out was Onalaska,” Moses said.

Early Monday morning, the PUD finished fixing outages in in Toledo, Winlock, Vader, Randle and Packwood. As of Monday afternoon, the only outage remaining was a line on the Cowlitz in Mossyrock, which, Moses said, was expected to be fixed shortly.

Despite the relentless rain, only the Newaukum River near Chehalis reached flood stage.

“Had this happened in November or December when the rivers are higher, we would be facing a different situation,” Mansfield said.

As of Monday morning, water on the Newaukum had reached 9.93 feet, according to a USGS rain gage near Chehalis. Flood stage is 10.5 feet.

According to the sheriff, other than a few roadways and power lines, no property damage was reported.

The National Weather Service on Sunday afternoon had said flooding was likely on parts of the Newaukum River including, Jackson Highway and Tune, Rush, Sommerville, Griel, Hamilton, Tauscher, Guerrier, Kirkland, Macomber, Rice, Senn, Lucas Creek, Middle Fork and North Fork roads. The service warned that roads and residential and commercial areas could be inundated and in some areas, flooding could be “deep and hazardous.”

Mansfield on Monday reported that some residential areas had been flooded, but not to the point of danger.

“Some of the small creeks were overflowing and flooding their barns,” he said. “Folks were getting concerned even though the major rivers weren’t flooding.”

On Friday, the Weather Service issued a flood watch in Southwest Washington from Saturday evening through Monday morning. Meteorologist Gary Schneider described the situation as important but not dire: “People should monitor the situation, but there’s no actual flood warnings, so no action needs to be taken,” he said.

That flood watch remained in effect through Monday morning; it applied to Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor, Mason, Pierce, Clallam, Jefferson, Skagit, Whatcom, King and Kitsap counties.

According to the Weather Service, powerful storms and mountain runoff created the minor flooding.