SEATTLE — Heavy rain brought flooding and concerns about landslides to the Pacific Northwest and many locations in western Oregon and Washington set rainfall records from 50 years ago or more after an unusually dry January.
A nearly 15-mile stretch of State Route 7 in Washington was shut down Tuesday because of severe flooding and there was no estimate on when it will reopen. A number of ski resorts on Oregon’s Mount Hood shut down Monday due to heavy rain and high winds.
Olympia, Washington, and the Seattle area exceeded rainfall records Monday set in 1972, while parts of northwest Oregon got nearly three inches of rain, smashing a previous record.
Flood watches were in effect throughout the region Tuesday and authorities asked homeowners to be aware of the possibility of landslides, particularly in areas that have recently burned in wildfires.
The rain came after an unusually dry January, but was unlikely to help lift the region out of a drought because most of the moisture fell as rain and not snow even at higher elevations. Warmer temperatures that came with the so-called atmospheric river are also melting existing snow, authorities said.
Mountain snowpack that melts in the spring is critical for forestalling drought conditions in the lowlands.
“Basically, all of this precipitation is falling as rain below 6 or 7,000 feet and so it’s not actually really adding any snowpack,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Colby Neuman told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The weather prompted Mount Hood Meadows, Timberline Lodge and Summit Pass in Oregon all to close their doors Monday but were the resorts were mostly back in business Tuesday. A lower-elevation resort, Ski Bowl, remained closed Tuesday.
