Well the cold a snow are about to be history but it could be a mess. The link is to NOAA 10 day forecast and it will be two storms separated by 3 days. The thing is look at the temperatures and if the forecast holds it is could get ugly in the foot hills and mountains. Haywire Ridge is over 10 inches in 10 days with 5 days out being nearly 4 inches in 24 hours. Aberdeen is around 5.75 with 5 day out rain nearly 3 inches.
It is the temperatures that will really go nuts a the lows for the coast are in the 30 to 40 degree range. In other words we have a couple of pineapples headed our way!
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Registered: 12/29/99
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Loc: Vancouver, Washington
Technically, it's not as sarcastic as it sounds.
If the carcasses are flushed into the estuary, fall Chinook will be the beneficiaries since they spend alot of their juvenile phase in the lower sections of the river, primarily the estuary. But if the carcasses remain in the upper river, other species will benefit including spring Chinook, coho, and, especially steelhead.
Historically there were plenty of returning adult salmon that provided marine-derived nutrients for both the river and the estuary. But not so much these days.......
Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4498
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
Today the tide was 10.6 but the storm ocean bubble put the water at slack the highest in 10 years at the house. The low coming is a minus 2 so the river still out of its banks is moving about 6 mph. Going to do this for a couple of days but thankfully we have low flows and low tides coming as the next storm is supposed to get to flood stage. Like I have said mother nature is a bit of a raving bitch!
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Registered: 03/03/09
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Lot of concern about the weather and yup it sucks. As luck would have we hit a series of 10 plus tides but the flows were low but we had a 10.7 everything up but OK. Then the next day a 10.6 but the storm surge pushed it 18 inch's above the previous day and the bay and tide water had the highest level in 10 years! Yesterday back down to normal 9.7 high tide. Today East end of Aberdeen is water over the roads and will be up again with a 9 ft and the rain / snow melt so more misery.
Looking ahead the Chehalis will hit high flood stage at tidewater the 10th but tides will be back down to the 8ft range so about normal water. Looking a head 3rd week of Jan to mid Feb the weather can be captured with the words rain & more rain & more rain. It looks to be one ugly 3 weeks but just how many inches one has to wait a bit for that forecast.
It is going to be one butt ugly winter no matter how you look at it.
Little Edit: I use South Monte for my tide elevations.
Edited by Rivrguy (01/06/2211:05 AM)
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Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in
The Chehalis at Porter is now flowing at 26.2K cfs, still on a steep rise... Satsop now contributing another 15.5K cfs, also on a steep rise... Wynoochee now adding at least another ~10K cfs. That makes a grand total of over 51.3K cfs (and still on a steep rise!) currently flowing down the tidal mainstem into Aberdeen. (Double the river volume that went over its banks in town this morning) And let's not forget to throw in the rising flows from the Wishkah and Hoquiam Rivers that are also converging on those low-lying flats in Aberdeen and Hoquiam.
That's a HUGE bolus of water flowing into town, and mainstem Chehalis outflow will only continue to increase overnight. The next 10 foot high tide arrives at 5am, so Greater Aberdonia is in for another round of significant flooding before daylight.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
The rain is finally slowing down. Chehalis at Porter is now past flood stage at 35.8K cfs and still rising... Satsop also past flood stage, has pegged the flow meter at 50K cfs (it's incapable of measuring ANY higher)... a dammed Wynoochee has crested at 15.5K cfs. That's an aggregate flow well over 100K cfs barreling downriver into Aberdeen tidewater.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
We have maybe a foot of water in the garage, and our home just became an island.
Not too bad as yet, but expecting more runoff. We had most critical stuff picked up off the garage floors and the dog kennels in anticipation, so nothings getting too wet.
Ahh, yea, life is good when living in the Green River Valley.
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Registered: 03/03/09
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Some folks are wondering if we are in for more high water. Well the Olympic side tribs are dropping but the upper Chehalis has not crested at Porter. So by the time the Chehalis crest reaches tide water the Olympic tribs drop will mean it will be about what we have now. It will take a week or more for all the standing water to recede so it is going take a bit to get back to normal, whatever that is. As ugly as all this was on the coast if we had the flows we have now the 10th through 13th with the 10.7 to 10.6 tides it would have made our current misery look good! We dodged the bullet called a perfect storm thankfully.
The long range forecast looks a lot better for the rest of January not a lot of rain and above average temperatures until the last week of the month, yeah ! February returns to below average temperatures with only 6 days of the month not raining. One never knows about the total of the forecast rainfall but it looks like a bunch of rain/snow days and I imagine they will make things interesting.
So it is clean up time for a couple of weeks then round two of this winter which looks to different but just as ugly as round one we just experienced.
What California (didn't) learn last year is that a big snowpack is nice only of it comes off at slow rates. Last winter they had lots of snow that left early and fast. Can't store it, it doesn't infiltrate. Lost of snow, early/warm spring and another hot summer gives us another drought and lots of fires.
Registered: 03/03/09
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Well Doc's concern about the flood levels up the Chehalis valley were right on! The latest NOAA river forecast has the river at Porter at Major Flood Stage https://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/rfc/ so to put it simple terms the valley is a ridge to ridge lake. With the Olympic side streams down below flood stage it means the main Chehalis high water we have now is going to hang around for a week or more. For us below Fuller Hill we can breath a bit easier as we are headed into a low tide series and frankly I think we all will not miss the 10 ft plus tides we had. Now that was ugly!
Edited by Rivrguy (01/09/2205:45 AM)
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Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in
Hey, Rivrguy, let's add a couple more feet to the base sea-level. I am not sure if the Chehalis has ever had such floods but in the early 1860's the "Big One's" discharge through the Golden Gate was 20' above sea level. Now, add in all the impervious surface we have now.... Plus, this was thought to be a millennial flood until studies showed a bigger one in the 1600s. So, it was a 200 year flood. Glad you rode this one out.
Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4498
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Oh yeah this one was ugly but the year of the big wind storm we had the river at flood stage and the wind held the tide for nearly 3 hours at high slack! Water was about 1 inch from going in the house. It is all about flows and tide here. Up river it is flows and how much rain and how fast it comes down in how many hours. Above Monte if the tribs and Chehalis are at normal flood stage and you get 4 inches in four hours you get a hundred year flood. When the Satsop went nuts in 05 ( could have the wrong year ) it was at flood stage and we got 4 inches from 8 to midnight followed by 4 inches 1 to to five AM highest I have seen and they called it a thousand year flood. In the 1930's Eldon said they had two feet of snow when he went to bed and around midnight it just dumped . When he got up in the morning no snow , 50 degrees and the water was in his barn which had never happened before. Eldon's place is on the straight stretch after your drop down the hill at the past the old Schafer Game Farm. Got the road he said.
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Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in