Flooding, mudslides expected after heavy weekend rain

The National Weather Service says a “wet Pacific storm” will cross the region Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning.

Not only are the Cascade and Olympic mountains expected to get anywhere from two to four inches of rain.

Rivers are already running high and more rain will cause them to rise even higher, prompting a flood watch for Jefferson, King, Lewis, Mason, Pierce, Snohomish, and Thurston counties from Saturday through late Sunday.

Forecasters say more landslides could be triggered by the new rainfall.

A slide on the railroad tracks between Seattle and Everett has halted passenger train traffic in that corridor. There’s a mandatory 48-hour moratorium on passenger train traffic after a mudslide onto the tracks.

“This is the seventh blocking event of the season, compared to 60 plus at this time last season,” said Burlington Northern-Sante Fe Railroad spokesman Gus Melonas.

National Weather Service meteorologist Ted Buehner said that the threat of mudslides will stay with us even when the rain has stopped.

“It’s going to take a number of days for things to settle down, so the threat of the landslides will probably be with us all the way through this coming weekend and perhaps into early next week,” Buehner said.

MyNorthwest.com’s Alyssa Kleven contributed to this report.