Damage-inflicting heavy rains, winds subside but Tacoma expected to stay wet until Tuesday

Heavy rainfall and strong winds that flooded roadways, downed trees and disrupted power in Pierce County had eased on Saturday. Rain continued to be likely this weekend through Monday night in Tacoma before cool and dry weather was expected to emerge, according to the National Weather Service.

The weekend is forecast to bring a high of 44 degrees on Saturday and gusty winds, which could be as high as 21 mph on Sunday, the NWS said. Expected rain throughout the weekend could reach between a quarter- and half-inch Saturday night and up to a quarter-inch on Sunday.

After a forecast of likely rain and mostly cloudy skies on Monday - with a slight chance of snow on Monday night - the weather is expected to clear beginning Tuesday, with mostly partly cloudy or sunny skies mid-week and a high near 39 on Thursday.

“Morning lows will dip into the 20s with the coolest temps of the season so far,” the NWS said.

Although the strong frontal system that brought storms on Friday had exited the region, the NWS warned that “several rivers flowing off the Cascades continue to run high and flooding continues.”

Bruce Wagner, Pierce County’s deputy director of planning and public works, said staff found no damage Saturday to levees and other infrastructure along the upper Puyallup and Carbon rivers after strong winds and rainfall on Friday, and they were assessing other rivers.

The county had responded by mid-day Saturday to 64 storm-related incidents of downed trees or sites where water was over the roadway, Wagner said. As of 1 p.m. Saturday, slightly more than half of those incidents still needed to be resolved, including one tree blocking a roadway at 142nd Street and South Yakima Avenue.

Tacoma Public Utilities said Saturday morning that power was restored for most customers after nearly 12,000 lost power late Friday night mostly in northeast and east Tacoma following wind-related outages.