The Storm

 Yesterday's storm brought substantial rain to our mountains (2-5 inches), as illustrated by the larger 24h totals (ending 7 AM today) shown below.

Piled on top of our previous heavy rain, a number of local rivers are flooding, some with major floods, like the Snoqualmie (see NWS River Forecast Center map below)

As you can see from the hydrograph at the Snoqualmie River at Carnation, the river responds relatively quickly to inputs of heavy rain, and subsides nearly as quickly.  Flood season is here.

Yesterday's winds were substantial but not record breaking, with the Puget Sound region encountering general gusts to 30-45 mph over land and 40-60 mph over water (see max gusts yesterday below)

Some exposed mountain-top stations had gusts above 100 mph.  Perhaps the most notable winds were in eastern Washington.  As the low passed eastward in southern BC an intense pressure gradient was created over that part of the state (see map)

The result were winds gusting to 50-70 mph, producing power outages affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Another remarkable event yesterday was the amazing radar image of the cold front as it approached our coast.  I show two images below during the early afternoon from the Langley Hill radar near Hoquiam.  You see the narrow line on the radar imagery?  That is the cold front.  An intense line of convection with heavy rain produces than linear features...known in the business as a narrow cold frontal rainband.