EVERETT — A weather system packing strong winds and heavy rain left 20,000 Snohomish County PUD customers without power for several hours Monday afternoon.
Crews were busy, responding to reports of trees and power lines down, thanks to persistent and gusty winds. Most of the outages were in north Snohomish County, including Arlington, the Lake Goodwin area and Stanwood, with another 1,300 without power along Mukilteo Boulevard.
At one point, more than 1,600 customers were affected on Camano Island, one of the communities hit hardest by the winds Monday.
By 4 p.m., about 9,000 customers remained without power.
Aaron Swaney, a spokesperson for the PUD, said the storm lived up to the forecast.
“We knew it was going to peak around 1:30 or 2, and the forecast was correct,” Swaney said.
Kirby Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, said Cama Beach recorded a peak gust of 48 mph around 6 a.m. Monday.
“We had a pretty vigorous frontal system that came through this morning, bringing some heavy rain to much of the area,” Cook said.
As for the rest of Monday and into Tuesday, winds were expected to subside.
Snow is a different story. A winter storm warning remained in effect Monday for the west slopes of the North Cascades above 3,500 feet for heavy and blowing snow.
Snow accumulations could reach a total of 18 inches before tapering off Tuesday.
As for the lowlands of Western Washington, Cook had a bit of good news.
Conditions were expected to dry up late Tuesday and remain mostly sunny, he said, until the next round of “unsettled weather” moves in for the weekend.
Michael Henneke: 425-339-3431; michael.henneke@heraldnet.com; X: @ihenpecked.
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