The rain finally let up last night and we even got a peek at the sun a few times this morning. Our neighborhood was spared and even downtown North Bend had only nuisance levels of water. But just a few miles north and west of us things were much worse. This is an aerial photo from the Seattle Times of the Snoqualmie River. The Carnation Golf Course is kind of at the middle left of this photo. I see that the official rainfall for Snoqualmie Pass, about 15 miles east of us on I-90 was, over 17 inches. The Seattle Times has some excellent photos of area flooding.

That was the lead on the local news this evening. The snow finally stopped Monday morning and over the next forty-eight hours the temperature has gone from below freezing to the mid 50s along with non-stop torrential rain. One town near the coast has had over 14 inches of rain in the last day and a half. I-5 will soon be closed south of Tacoma. There was even water over the road leading to the Mt. Si bridge we cross to get home: the first time ever.

Here’s a photo of downtown Snoqualmie where some of you who have visited us have attended church or gone to dinner.

OK. It’s bad enough to have to get back into the go to work routine after the Christmas-New Years break. But our relentless winter launched the first work week of ’09 with another 4-5 inches of snow topped in the last hour or so with heavy rain.