Here's their records and their forecasted crests as of 8:00 p.m.:

These are expecting "major" flooding:

Those expecting moderate flooding are:

Those expecting minor flooding:

Check this link for the latest Flood statements, which has all the specific forecasts for each individual river. Note that this is sort of a "Weather warning clearinghouse" page, so you might have to scroll down to find the Flood Warnings.

But it's not just the mountain rivers that are presenting problems. Urban streams and rivers also have the potential to flood, and with the past two storms doing a good job of knocking off most of the autumn leaves that were still left on the trees, those leaves could clog storm drains and make for local pools of water that you wouldn't normally anticipate.

How Much Rain?

Here's some rainfall totals for major cities, showing what we've had with this latest storm, and what we've had since this series of storms began on Friday.

And to expand that earlier rainfall tidbit. We received just as much rain in the 5 minutes between 7:45 and 7:50 a.m. Monday (0.06") as we did in all of August. It's possible we might set one of the all-time daily rainfall records for Seattle. As of 9 p.m., Seattle had 3.26" of rain -- the 3rd wettest day in Seattle's history.

A Weather Smorgasbord

Now that we've gotten the "what" out of the way, here's the "why". This storm is particularly interesting because it's got a little bit of everything as far as Northwest weather quirks -- I think we have four separate entries in our Weather FAQ that can explain what's going on.

First up is the Pineapple Express. You've probably heard that term a lot lately. It's the name for a storm like this that taps into tropical moisture near Hawaii (get it? Pineapples?) and then brings it here.

The general meteorology is that we have a strong area of low pressure to our north that has stretched a very long front from basically British Columbia down to those Hawaiian tropics. Think of it as a conveyor belt that is just trucking the tropical moisture down here there straight up into our area.

The front itself (aka "the conveyor belt") is eventually going to move off to the southeast, but has stalled in the meantime Monday evening and night. As long as that front is overhead, moisture is streaming northeast along the front to here.

But it's not raining quite so hard everywhere. That's because with strong southwest flow over the area, we have the Olympic Rain Shadow in effect. Spots immediately northeast of the Olympics have received far less rain than everyone else (Everett and Oak Harbor haven't even reached an inch) but that "umbrella" does not extend to the mountains.

Not to be outdone, it's a little windy today, as the low pressure center driving this whole storm moves inland to our north. Luckily, the storm's center is moving far enough to the north that we're not expecting major winds, but you can read more about What makes a Windstorm

Finally, FAQ entry #4 in this forecast probably won't happen until Tuesday, but we are thinking that a Puget Sound Convergence Zone is a possibility as well.

Where do we go from here?

Expect heavy rain to continue overnight Monday, then slowly taper off Tuesday morning. The rest of the day will feature scattered showers (and possible Convergence Zone) and cooling temperatures, to where by afternoon we should be in the low-mid 50s.

Wednesday will see just few showers amid sunbreaks, and then we're thinking it'll actually be a dry day Thursday. Highs each day will be around 50.

Another storm comes ashore by Friday, but by then the rivers should be back in their banks. Also, this storm looks much cooler, with snow levels closer to 3,000 feet, meaning snow in the mountains and not so much water runoff.

Cool showers for Saturday, and then cool rain again for Sunday with highs in the upper 40s. By Monday, it's even cooler with scattered showers and highs in the mid-upper 40s.

Important Links

Latest Washington Warnings

WSDOT Statewide Traffic Alert

King County Flooding Alerts

Puget Sound Area Emergency Information