Western Washington braced for what the National Weather Service in Seattle called “catastrophic” conditions Wednesday as an atmospheric river drenched the state.
The NWS forecasted major flooding for 17 rivers as rain persisted across the region. Parts of Northwest Oregon were also affected, with flood warnings in place for several rivers.
Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide emergency in response to the intense flooding. Several impacted counties also issued evacuation orders Wednesday afternoon.
The ocean-crossing storms known as atmospheric rivers are nothing new: They’re a major source of moisture up and down the West Coast every winter. But climate scientists expect them to grow more powerful, arrive more frequently, and last longer as Earth’s climate keeps warming.
The NWS said rainfall is expected to peak Wednesday night, while some parts of Skagit County to the north may not see the worst of the flooding until Thursday or Friday. Flooding is expected to surpass a record set in 1990, when floods caused two human fatalities, over 2,000 evacuations, and more than $100 million in damage, according to a Natural Disaster Survey Report.
Robert Ezelle, director of the Washington Military Department's Emergency Management Division, said up to 75,000 people living in low-lying areas of Skagit County could need to evacuate as early as Wednesday evening.
“We anticipate levees — not just on the Skagit River, but on many others — being over the top,” Ezelle said. “We’re hearing reports that the flood wall in Arlington could be overtopped.”
Emergency responders were paying close attention to the Skagit River and surrounding areas on Wednesday, though reports of flooded roads and evacuation orders were widespread. Communities in Snohomish and Pierce counties were told to evacuate. Skagit County has also recommended evacuations for the towns of Rockport, Hamilton, Marblemount and Concrete.
Speaking from the Emergency Operations Center at Camp Murray in Tacoma, Gov. Ferguson said he’s requesting an expedited emergency declaration from the federal government.
“Lives will be at stake in the coming days, and we need the federal government to do what’s entirely appropriate here,” Ferguson said.
If granted, Ferguson said Washington would receive additional federal resources that could save lives.
A spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told KUOW FEMA is in touch with emergency management and tribal governments in Washington and Oregon.
FEMA also set up a communications hub in Bothell on Tuesday and started 24-hour operations Wednesday to “ensure an efficient flow of information between federal agencies, and state and tribal governments.” The agency additionally has two liaisons at the state Emergency Operations Center, and “additional response teams are pre-positioning lifesaving capabilities in Washington state.”
Whether the Trump administration will grant emergency funds is in question, though. In June, the president denied the state’s request for major-disaster aid after severe weather caused by a bomb cyclone hit western Washington in November 2024. The administration did not offer any explanation for the denial.
“We need the federal government to grant that request,” Ferguson said. “This is critical.”
The severity of the flooding was exacerbated by the fact that two atmospheric rivers swamped the region one right after the other.
Washington State Climatologist Guillaume Mauger said neither of this week’s atmospheric rivers delivered record-breaking amounts of rain, but two arriving back to back has overwhelmed the region’s rivers – and offered a sneak peak into our warmer future.
“The science is clear that floods are going to become larger and more frequent in the future,” Mauger said.
He said extreme, formerly once-a-century floods on the Skagit River could arrive four times more often as soon as the 2040s.
A warmer atmosphere can hold — and dump — more moisture, and more of that precipitation is likely to fall as rain, not snow.
“If there's less falling as snow and more falling as rain, that means there's more water that can end up directly in the rivers and contribute to flooding,” Mauger said.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for every Celsius degree of human-caused warming, extreme storms over land are expected to dump 7% more precipitation.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.