The storms from Tuesday to Wednesday morning were part of an atmospheric event on a river – involving rivers of high humidity in the atmosphere – that drenched the region for days and caused parts of western Washington the wettest start of a year, according to the National Meteorological Service.
Flood warnings or alerts were in effect on Wednesday morning for western Washington and western Oregon, parts of which received more than 20 centimeters of rain in just the past three days.
Strong winds – including gusts above 60 mph in some places – knocked down trees and power lines. More than 650,000 utility customers were left without power on Wednesday morning in Washington and Oregon, according to the PowerOutage.us tracker.
As a customer can be an entire family, the number of people without energy services was probably well over 650,000.
“There are a lot of trees and debris from transmission lines on the roads, not to mention stagnant water,” said the National Weather Service office in Seattle said Wednesday morning. “Power outages are causing dark crossings. If you don’t have to travel this morning, it may be safer to stay home!”
Check the forecast across the country
Strong winds pushing east
As of Wednesday morning, strong winds were blowing in central Washington and Oregon, and more areas were expected to experience them soon.
More than 11 million people were under high wind warnings or alerts on Wednesday morning, from Washington to Dakotas and south to Nebraska.
Strong wind clocks are scheduled for more millions of people on the plains for Thursday, the weather service said.