Flooding follows Znow

First a lot of snow, then warm weather, and then rain, tons of it. The weather "stream" is referred to as the "Pineapple Express" since it originates in the waters around Hawaii - warm, moist air - and the end of this firehose is normally the Olympic Mountains or the Cascades. But all water that ends up there has to come down. And with warm weather, add to that a lot of melting snow.

So, here it resulted in amazing (and for many surprising) flooding. All passes were closed, I-5 closed south of Olympia, and only way out of state is driving into Canada or flying. Sort of strange, living in one of the most high-tech hubs on the planet.
Today could not sit home and just watch it all on TV - especially not after that some areas SW of Seattle got over 16 inches - that is more than 400 mm... - of rain over the past two days. So Aksel and I decided to drive up to Snoqualmie Falls and City, one of few areas one could actually still get to, to get a close up encounter of the disaster.
Despite weather report talking about clearing, it started raining heavily and later even snowing, wet, very damp snow. Snow that sticks like wet wool gloves...

It was sad to see the state in downtown Snoqualmie, with belongings thrown out of flooded houses into the front yard, but at the same time, living close to sometimes "raging rivers" (as the amptly named tavern in Fall City), you actually do take a risk (just as we do living in an earthquake prone area...). A river that is beautiful and calm in late summer, can quickly turn wild and raging with some precip up in the mountains.

WSDOT has posted some truly amazing photos of the damage at their Flickr site. There is a lot of destruction, or should we say evidence of Mother Nature's Fury, but check especially the ones taken up on Snoqualmie Pass.

If interested in some stuff from last winter, there are "true" winter pictures in WSDOT's Winter 2008 Flickr archive