Heavy rain, mountain snow moves in over Western Washington

The National Weather Service is forecasting significant rainfall Monday evening and showers continuing across the state until the weekend.

“We’re looking at totals of a half-inch to an inch in the interior lowlands, which includes the Seattle area,” said Meteorologist Johnny Burg with the National Weather Service.

The rain began moving in to Western Washington in the afternoon, with gusty winds toppling trees in Sequim, Mount Vernon and other areas.

Forecasters were predicting up to an inch-and-a-half of rain on the coast and up to two inches over the mountains.

The National Weather Service reports wind gusts reached 54 mph at Whidbey Island NAS, 40 mph in Bellingham and 38 mph in Everett.

Mountain snow

The snow level is expected to drop as low as 5,000 feet by Wednesday, which would leave the first significant snow of the season on the Mount Baker Highway, Washington Pass on the North Cascades Highway, Paradise at Mount Rainier and Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula.

Temperatures remain seasonal with highs around 60 in Western Washington and 70 in Eastern Washington.

Halloween forecast

While it’s still too early forecast the details for Halloween, Burg said the 14-18 day forecast shows warmer and wetter conditions than usual.

Strange weekend weather

The windy weather this week follows an unusual tornado warning Saturday.

Meteorologist Dana Felton said the NWS did not end up classifying the event as a tornado.

“It did touch down, but it was over the water – and when it’s over the water, it’s classified as a waterspout. If it had stayed on the ground when it hit land, then we would have classified it as a tornado.”

The warning began around noon on Saturday and lasted less than 10 minutes.

The last time the metro area had a tornado warning was back in December 1969.

There were also reports of scattered thunder and lightning throughout the Puget Sound area Saturday evening.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.