Heavy Rain — King, Washington

2007-12-03 · near Bothell, King, Washington

Event narrative

Four apartment buildings were evacuated in North Seattle, where some basement apartments had 3 feet of water in them. About 30 people were evacuated from apartments in Woodinville. Many roads were closed, including parts of SR 522, water over I-405 led to heavy traffic all day. About 20 roads were damaged throughout the county. Nearly 5 inches of rain fell at SeaTac airport. Nathan Hale High School in north Seattle was closed for a week due to water damage from Thorton Creek for the first time ever. A few homes and businesses had water damage.

Wider weather episode

Record flooding occurred on the Chehalis, Skokomish, and Elwha Rivers. In addition to the record flooding, major flooding occurred on the Bogachiel River. Flooding also occurred on the Nooksack, Skagit, Stillaguamish, SF Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Puyallup, Deschutes, Nisqually, Skookumchuck, Dungeness Rivers and Issaquah Creek. Significant and damaging urban and small stream flooding occurred in Snohomish, King, Lewis, Thurston, Mason, and Kitsap counties, as 3 to 8 inches of rain fell over the area with the exception of 10 to 20 inches in the Willapa Hills and southern Olympic mountain areas. At least 130 people had to be rescued by helicopter. Two men died as a result of river flooding - one near Winlock in Lewis county and another along the Tahuya river in Mason county. A landslide hit a house and buried a man in his sleep near Hoodsport in Mason county.

These events were part of a significant deep Pacific storm system offshore the also initially generated lowland snow in western Washington and later created strong winds in primarily the coastal region and avalanches in the Cascades.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (47.7700, -122.2000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 67886. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.