This week's Pacific Northwest "Election Day Superstorm" pales by comparison to The Big Blow of 1962, when winds were estimated at 179 mph on the Oregon coast. But as you'll see below, many rivers have seen their highest levels in history, indicating that the rainfall will be the bigger story when we look back at this tempest. The news articles, photos and video of the inundation in Washington are incredible, especially CNN's coverage.

From looking at the ROMAN site, I have pulled out these highest wind gusts (over 70 mph shown):

Logan Pass, MT: 120 mph (GRAPH)
Rattlesnake Mountain, WA: 96 mph (GRAPH)
Deep Creek, MT: 78 mph (GRAPH)
Blue Ridge, OR: 74 mph (GRAPH)
Hebo Mountain, OR: 72 mph (GRAPH)

Logan Pass Hits 120 MPH Last Night

None of these stations are official government reporting stations and confirmation on their wind speeds has not been issued by the NWS... however just looking at the graphs, the wind gusts look reasonable to me (I took several stations with erroneous data out of the list). The Logan Pass Visitors Center is located at 6,775 feet of elevation in Glacier National Park.

Statements out of NWS-Seattle and NWS-Portland indicate the following 5-day rain totals (over 15 inches shown):

June Lake, WA: 31.1 Inches*
Lees Camp, OR: 26.0"
Paradise, WA: 22.04"
Log Creek, OR: 19.9"
North Fork Bull Run, OR: 18.7"*
Snoqualmie Pass, WA: 17.64"
Yacolt, WA: 17.08"*
Mt. Hebo, OR: 15.86"
Jewell, OR: 15.7"
Spencer Meadows, WA: 15.6"*
Stevens Pass, WA: 15.58"

*Issued as 2-part totals in earlier statement only.

A home flooded by the Skagit River is shown from the air Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006 near Mount Vernon, Wash. as shown during an aerial tour of areas hit hard by flooding in Washington State. Record rainfall brought heavy flooding to parts of the Northwest on Tuesday, killing at least one person, causing evacuations and damaging roads and houses. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool)

And the following locations which broke their 5-Day rainfall totals**:

Paradise: 22.04"
Aberdeen: 13.16"
Shelton Airport: 13.16"
Olympia Airport: 9.79"
Mayfield: 9.61"
Seatac Airport: 7.57"
Boeing Field: 5.54"

**Seattle-NWS only. Previous records are only available for official government climate stations, generally at airports.

Oregon broke their statewide 1-day rain total. Chris Burt, author of "Extreme Weather", a comprehensive guide to which I frequently refer, says:

The Lees Camp rainfall of 13.20" on Monday (11/6) is a new STATE record for the most precipitation to fall in 24 hours for Oregon. Old record was 11.65" at Port Orford on 11/19/1996.

Record rainfall records for the day were set for at least one day at SeaTac, Seattle NWS, Stamped Pass, Hoquiam, Bellingham, Olympia and Quillayute. Stampede Pass, Washington broke their all-time daily rainfall record.

And Seattle, where they say it's always wet, they've recorded 750% of their normal monthly rainfall this week. With more storms to go this week, we could be threatening the monthly rainfall total records for Washington (57.04" in 1933) or Oregon (52.78" in 1917). (Records according to the Extreme Weather book).

The USGS reported 8 river gauges experiencing major flooding this morning.

The Cowlitz River at Randle Passes Record Stage,
Decreases Slower than Forecast

The NWS has issued a statement reporting that the records were broken for the crests of the following rivers during this Pacific Northwest flooding event:

Cowlitz at Packwood
Cowlitz at Randle (GRAPH)
Bogachiel near La Push
Nisqually near National
Carbon near Fairfax
Puyallup near Orting
Snoqualmie near Carnation (GRAPH)
Skykomish near Gold Bar
South Fork Stillaguiamish near Granite Falls
Stillaguiamish at Arlington

And, with apologies to the residents of the area, late this week, another strong storm will bring heavy rain.

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