Flood Summary Report, Nooksack, Skagit and Snohomish River Basins November 1990 Events

The purpose of this report is to document the flooding and related flood data of the two successive rain flood events in western Washington State that occurred during November 9-12 and 21-26, 1990 for the Nooksack, Skagit, and Snohomish River basins. Although high water and flooding occurred in other basins, the scope of this report has been limited to the three river basins stated above. This report is organized under four primary categories meteorology, hydrology, flood damages, and flood fighting. The meteorology portion covers the atmospheric characteristics of the storm as it passed over the basin, while the hydrology covers the characteristics of the runoff across the basin and in the rivers. The Nooksack, Skagit, and Snohomish basins cover 90 of the drainage between Puget Sound and the Cascades, and between Seattle and British Columbia, Canada. The headwaters of each of these basins originate high on the western slope of the Cascade mountain range. Generally, these rivers fall steeply as they descend through the predominantly forested Cascade mountains and then flatten out through the coastal lowlands before they empty into Puget Sound. Flooding problems are most evident in the more developed coastal lowlands. Included are newspaper articles giving the local viewpoint on both flood events.