Weekend Deluge Causes Minor Flooding

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A wet and windy weekend put area rivers on the rise, including the Skookumchuck River, which hit minor flood stage near Bucoda early Monday morning.

The swollen waterways were caused by an irregular series of coastal storms that dropped upwards of three inches of rain over a 72-hour period. On Monday morning Bucoda mayor Alan Carr said that the Skookumchuck River had crested just before it started spilling into the flood-prone town. 

“It hasn’t come over the banks yet,” said Carr, who sounded unphased with the springtime flood scare. He called the surge in river volume a freak occurrence caused by a set of persistent offshore storms.

“It’s gonna happen any time you have that much rain,” said Carr. “It wouldn’t have been a big deal if there was a break in between, but when it all comes back to back you’re going to see it rise.”

According to Jonny Berg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services in Seattle, the Skookumchuck River crested at 13.9 feet around 5 a.m. on Monday. That level was just short of the 14.07 foot level that NWS Seattle had modeled and the flood warning was called off Monday afternoon.

Berg noted that recording stations in Tenino and on the Skookumchuck River below Bloody Run Creek received between 2 and 2.25 inches of rain between Friday and Monday morning. Chehalis and Toledo were hit with about 1.5 inches of rain each, while stations in Onalaska and Winlock reported 2 inches of rainfall over a 72-hour period. The lowland areas with the most precipitation over the weekend included a station along the South Fork Chehalis River, and another in Doty, which reported 3 inches and 2.5 inches of rain, respectively. 



“I would say that locally places got between an inch and a half up to three inches or more, especially if they were near the mountains,” said Berg.

All that water caused the Skookumchuck to fill in low-lying areas from Bucoda to the Pearl Street bridge on the north end of Centralia. However, no damage was reported by city crews from either city. Berg noted that the Skookumchuck was the only local river to reach flood stage. However, he pointed out that the Skokomish River to the north was the hardest hit in the region and reached moderate flood stage.

While Monday allowed for a brief respite from the rain, the National Weather Service in Seattle says more rain is likely to fall for the rest of the week.

“It’s just going to be wet,” said Berg, who doesn’t believe there will be any more dry days through at least Sunday. Berg believes Wednesday could be the rainiest day this week with up to a half-inch of precipitation expected to fall in some areas.

“The amounts probably aren’t going to be as much but it’s just going to be one system after the other again,” said Berg. “River levels will probably rise again in the coming days but we are not expecting there to be any flooding.”