SEATTLE — A strong pacific weather system is offshore, heading to the north end of Vancouver Island. Wind is already picking up at the coast and in the foothills and will increase even more from there.
Watch live team coverage of the incoming storm on KIRO 7 News at Noon on air, on your streaming device or on the KIRO 7 News app.
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A High Wind Warning is in effect at the coast, north/west of Everett including Island and San Juan counties and coastal Whatcom and Skagit Counties. Forecast models project wind gusts over 50 mph in these locations with an isolated 60 mph gust possible.
Farther south around Puget Sound, a Wind Advisory has been issued for wind gusts over 40 mph, including Seattle, Tacoma and Everett. The period of strongest winds should be from about 7 a.m. to about 2 p.m, peaking around late-morning.
KIRO 7 Meteorologist Nick Allard warns viewers to charge cellphones and devices while they can in case of a power outage.
Early Tuesday morning, Grays Harbor Public Utility District #1 was already working on several large scale outages. Outages have also been reported in Clallam County.
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As is usually the case with southerly and southwesterly winds, the coastal locations along the Sound will experience the strongest wind gusts. In addition, some coastal flooding the Pacific beaches is likely with unusually high tides. This is also possible around Puget Sound though the strongest winds should occur after the highest tide in the 6 a.m. hour, but expect some flooding of low-lying areas that often experience high water in King tide season.
The rain will push inland by about mid-morning and will continue until it tapers off to showers this evening. The wind will calm down this afternoon, but stay breezy for the rest of the day.
Rainfall will tally up in the quarter to half-inch range Tuesday so major urban flooding isn’t likely, but we’ll probably have some issues in spots where storm drains are plugged up. In the mountains, warmer air will keep the snow levels mainly above the lower passes on Tuesday. The only river to be in flood stage, however, is the Skokomish in Mason County – our most flood-prone major river.
Expect scattered showers in the forecast with some mountain snow for the remainder of the week with some drier weather possible by the weekend.