WA WX: Record-Breaking Rains, Avalanche Warning In The Cascades

WASHINGTON — 2021 is off to a wild start in western Washington, with heavy rains, flood and landslide warnings last weekend, and now an avalanche warning has joined the fray.

Early Monday, the Northwestern Avalanche Center issued an avalanche warning for the east Cascades.

In the lowlands that's translated into record-breaking rain. The National Weather Service says Hoquiam and Olympia have seen the wettest first four days of January ever. Meanwhile, Seattle is having its third wettest first week of January — enough that the Jet City has already had 51 percent of its normal rain for the whole month.

The news follows a tumultuous weekend, in which the NWS issued a flood watch for most of western Washington Saturday, and then warned residents about potential landslide dangers due to moistened soil on Sunday.

The landslide warning remains in effect through the early week, as the weather service expects the rain to stick around at least to Wednesday morning— albeit with a quick reprieve early Tuesday.

Of course, the evergreen state is no stranger to wild weather. In fact, as KOMO News reports, Washington was home to the wettest spot in the continental U.S. in 2020: one spot on the Olympic Peninsula, saw a whopping 255.41 inches of rain last year. Here's to hoping we won't see anything close to that across the rest of the state.