Utilities restore most of the power outages that impacted over 150,000 in Washington

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Western Washington continue with power outages Wednesday as an atmospheric river weather system blasted Western Washington.

As of 7:20 a.m. Thursday, just 757 homes and businesses remain impacted by the outages, the website poweroutage.us reported. That’s a significant improvement from earlier Wednesday when as of 6 p.m., 9,340 customers were impacted.  Earlier Wednesday, at 12:20 p.m., 42,659 homes and businesses were affected. At 9 a.m., 86,230 customers were impacted. At 5:55 a.m. the number stood at 158,413.

Looking at specific utilities, PSE saw the largest number of customers affected, according to its outage map. As of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, the utility is reporting the utility is reporting 34 “active outages” and 306 customers impacted. At 6 p.m. Wednesday,  the utility was reporting 178 “active outages” and 4,902 customers affected. Earlier Wednesday, at 12:20 p.m., there were a reported 266 “active outages” and 19,573 customers impacted. Early Wednesday, at around 6:30 a.m., the numbers stood at 337 “active outages” and 62,285 customers impacted.

Snohomish PUD is reporting 353 outages as of 7:25 a.m. Thursday, according to the utility’s outage map. At 6 p.m., Wednesday, the map showed 912 homes and business were impacted by the power outages. At 12:30, there were 2,189 customers affected by the power outages. At 6:30 a.m. 41,026 customers were impacted. Just 10 minutes before that at 6:20 a.m., there were 57,220 homes and businesses impacted.

Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU), which was largely unaffected in last weekend’s wave of outages, stated on its outage map there is just one outage and three customers affected as of 7:30 a.m. There were 27 outages and 316 customers impacted as of 6 p.m. Wednesday. At 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, there were 76 outages and 2,384 homes and businesses affected. There were 75 outages and 11,212 customers impacted as of 9 a.m. At 6:30 a.m., there were 65 outages and 11,044 homes and businesses affected.

Seattle City Light’s outage map shows just two “active events” and two customers impacted as of 7:20 a.m. Thursday. At 6 p.m., there were 10 “active events” and 104 homes and businesses impacted. At 12:30 p.m., there were 17 “active events” and 331 customers affected. At 9 a.m., there were 22 “active events” and 1,972 homes and business impacted. At 6:30 a.m., the numbers stood at 15 “active events” and 1,976 customers.

Looking at other parts of the state, poweroutage.us reported as of 6:20 a.m. Wednesday Peninsula Light Company customers were experiencing 14,577 outages. Since that utility serves 35,935 homes and businesses, it means 40% of them were affected. That number fell all the way to 23 customers impacted by 7:20 a.m. Thursday.

A map of power outages in the state of Washington as of 5:57 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024 can be seen in this image. (Image courtesy of the poweroutage.us/poweroutage.us/area/state/washington)

Atmospheric river system blew through Western Washington

Brian Monahan, a fill-in meteorologist at KIRO 7, wrote in a report this morning the atmospheric river system was moving out of Western Washington Wednesday morning as “a cold front through the area.”

Through the rest of Wednesday, the wind was expected to die down across Western Washington with gusts dropping into the 20-30 mph range in the afternoon, Monahan added. By the evening, the wind should more or less completely die off.

Overnight, winds gusted to 77 mph at Hoquiam with many spots around the Puget Sound in the 50-60 mph range, Monahan also said. This was enough to cause all of the area power outages.

The National Weather Service (NWS) released a statement early Wednesday noting the highest wind speeds between late Tuesday and early Wednesday. The NWS noted the following wind speeds:

Boeing Field: 55 mph
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport: 55 mph
Bellevue: 51 mph
Seattle: 32 mph
Tacoma: 60 mph
Paine Field in Everett: 49 mph
Olympia: 51 mph
Bellingham Airport: 54 mph

Editors’ note: This story was first published early on Thursday, Dec. 18. It has been updated and republished multiple times since then.

Steve Coogan is the lead editor of MyNorthwest. You can read more of his stories here. Follow Steve on X, or email him here.