A storm is moving toward Lewis County that will bring rain starting early Wednesday afternoon is expected to last through Sunday morning with the heaviest rainfall occurring Thursday through Friday, putting Lewis County on Flood Watch from Thursday through Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The National Weather Service issued a Flood Watch on Wednesday at 11:20 a.m. for the following western Washington counties: Clallam, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Kitsap, Mason, Skagit, Whatcom, King, Lewis, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston that will go into effect on Thursday and last through Sunday evening.
“Many rivers throughout the watch area are at risk of flooding during this time. Urban and small stream flooding is also a possibility, especially during the heaviest rain Thursday night into Friday morning. In addition, there is some possibility that landslides could be triggered by this heavy rain though soils are not saturated at this time,” according to the National Weather Service
People in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action, according to the notice.
“For the entire event for you guys down in Lewis County, right now we are looking at about 4 to 6 inches of rainfall total,” said Steve Reedy a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Reedy pointed out that the 4 to 6 inches will be spread out from Wednesday to Sunday. He said that besides a few lulls it should be raining for five days straight.
“The heaviest rainfall really looks to be in the Thursday night to Friday time frame,” said Reedy.
Within that time frame the rainfall is predicted to be about a half inch to 3/4 of an inch for each 6-hour block of time. Within the 24 hours from Thursday evening to Friday evening Lewis County should get up to 3 inches of rainfall.
“It’s certainly a lot (of rain) when we compare it to what we've seen so far this fall and into the winter. Usually we tend to see more storms like this or of this caliber more in the November timeframe and into December so it’s not a rare event but it is uncommon,” said Reedy.
The National Weather Service said that are estimating that some rivers will reach flood stage. It takes some time for the rivers to react to the rainfall which means that the rivers in the area shouldn’t start to react until Friday into Saturday.
“We are expecting river levels to rise and we are watching the situation closely,” said Reedy.
