The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks through Friday and hurricane-force wind warnings were in effect as the strongest atmospheric river — a large plume of moisture — that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season overwhelmed the region. The storm system that hit starting Tuesday is considered a “ bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.
Falling trees struck homes and littered roads across northwest Washington. In Lynnwood, Washington, a woman died Tuesday night when a large tree fell on a homeless encampment, South County Fire said in a statement on X. In Seattle, a tree fell onto a vehicle, temporarily trapping a person inside, the Seattle Fire Department reported. The agency later said the individual was in stable condition.
A 70-year-old tree fell on Wendy Harrington’s home in Issaquah, Washington, and she told KOMO-TV that she thought a whole wall was coming down.
“It felt explosive, like there was a bomb going off,” Harrington said. “Everything was just very loud.”
Early Wednesday, over 600,000 houses in Washington State were reported to be without power. on But the number of outage reports had fluctuated wildly Tuesday evening likely due in part to several weather and utility agencies struggling to report information on the storm because of internet outages and other technical problems. It wasn’t clear if that figure was accurate. More than 8,000 were without power in Oregon and more than 24,000 had no power in California as of Wednesday morning.
“Trees are coming down all over the city & falling onto homes,” the fire department in Bellevue, about 10 miles east of Seattle, posted on the social platform X. “If you can, go to the lowest floor and stay away from windows. Do not go outside if you can avoid it.”
As of 8 p.m., the peak wind speed was in Canadian waters, where gusts of 101 mph were reported off the coast of Vancouver Island, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle. Along the Oregon coast, there were wind gusts as high at 79 mph Tuesday evening, according to the National Weather Service in Medford, Oregon, while wind speed of 77 mph was recorded at Mount Rainier in Washington.
