Rare intense atmospheric river forecast to hit starting Sunday

Published 4:52 pm Friday, May 31, 2024

LONG BEACH — By early June our rainiest weather is ordinarily behind us in Washington state, but there will be a rare exception starting this Sunday, June 2, forecasters say.

“An extraordinarily intense atmospheric river, one quite rare for early June, will slam into the region,” University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass wrote Friday in his popular weather blog: cliffmass.blogspot.com.

On the south Washington coast, an atmospheric river of intensity 2 or 3 on a 0-to-5 scale is predicted by the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. This means the rainfall event is likely to be classified as “strong.”

Around 2 inches of rain are possible on the coast between Sunday and next Tuesday, while higher elevations in the Willapa Hills could see up 5 inches.

The moisture in this storm originates from all the way across the Pacific Ocean, spanning the distance from the Philippines to the U.S.