600,000 Lose Power in Washington State as Atmospheric River Nears

U.S.|600,000 Without Power in Washington State as Powerful Winds Topple Trees

Strong winds downed trees and power lines in Washington State as a storm system with hurricane-force winds approached the region on Tuesday, leaving over 600,000 customers without power and forcing some train cancellations.

A powerful atmospheric river — a band of moisture that flows from the Pacific Ocean — is expected to bring damaging winds, life-threatening flooding and large ocean waves to a wide stretch of the Northwest this week. Washington State and parts of Western Canada felt the initial impacts on Tuesday night.

Some areas of Washington State received wind gusts of up to 77 miles per hour, the National Weather Service’s Seattle office said. Hurricane-strength winds begin at 74 m.p.h.

The agency urged drivers to stay off the roads, saying that strong winds were expected until about 4 a.m. local time and could cause widespread power outages.

As of 11 p.m., about 600,000 electricity customers in the state had no power, according to the site poweroutage.us. The Weather Service said its Seattle office had been hit by an outage that was affecting its radio transmissions.

The agency also warned that heavy snow was expected to fall overnight in and around the Cascade Mountains. Very strong winds across the ocean could capsize or damage vessels overnight, it added.

Amtrak announced that it had canceled several trains running between Seattle, Oakland, Portland and Spokane through Thursday.

The same weather system was expected to begin drenching the Bay Area and parts of Northern California with heavy rain overnight, and to continue into the weekend. More than a month’s worth of precipitation could fall over the next three to four days, forecasters said.