As rivers go, the Nooksack isn’t one of the biggest or longest. It flows for about 75 miles, beginning up near Mount Baker and emptying into Bellingham Bay south of the town of Ferndale. Along the way it wanders through fields and farmland. We cross the river every time we go into the church, usually on the Interstate 5 bridge just east of Ferndale, sometimes on the bridge that is right in the town of Ferndale. We’ve also crossed it at the Slater Bridge south of town. One of the places where we like to walk is a trail that runs from a river access point at Ferndale, past the Hovander Farm, and down to the Slater Bridge. The trail runs right alongside the river and it is a good place to observe the river. However, we haven’t walked there for a week or so, partly because we have been exploring other walks in our neighborhood, but also because it has been raining quite a bit.

It is the rainy season in Western Washington, part of the type of winter weather that this region experiences. This is only our second winter in the area, and we are not yet used to the weather, so all of this rain with no snow is not at all what we are used to experiencing. Most of the time the rain comes in showers and lets up for part of the day allowing us to walk when it isn’t raining, but the last couple of days have been pretty much nonstop rain. The forecast is for it to rain all day today as well, with a pretty good chance for a break in the showers overnight tonight.

All of that rain has resulted in the flooding of the rivers that empty into the Salish Sea, including the Nooksack. Floods are part of the natural cycle of the coastal rivers and the silt that has been deposited over millennia during flood seasons has resulted in rich agricultural land that produces a lot of crops. We aren’t used to fields that flood, sometimes with a couple of feet of water on them from late November until late February and then dry out and are farmed during the summer. That kind of field is fairly common along the Nooksack and other rivers in the area.

Flood stage of the Nooksack River is 8 ft at the Saxon Bridge. Last night when I was getting ready for bed, the National Weather Service was reporting that the water was at 9.54 feet in that location. Based on the forecast for the river, the weather and other conditions, the prediction is for the current flood to crest at nearly 11 feet tonight. For comparison, most of the time when we were walking alongside the river this fall, the flow was about 3 feet. The river is flowing at more than three times the usual amount of water and will reach levels nearly four times. It is a lot of water.

The Nooksack is just one of the rivers that carry water from the Cascades to the ocean. There are lots of other flooding rivers. At Mount Vernon, where we lived most of last year, the Skagit River is also running above flood stage. The Skagit County Sheriff is assisting with the evacuation of the town of Hamilton, just upstream from Mount Vernon. The Army Corps of Engineers is preparing to shore up flood walls along the river. In Mount Vernon, the city has its emergency flood walls raised. The National Weather Service is predicting the River to reach 37 feet at Mount Vernon, almost to the record level recorded in 1990 before the flood wall was in place. Again, for comparison, we have walked alongside the river in Mount Vernon when the water was flowing about about 9 feet. The highest we observed in our year of living there was about 22 feet. Another 15 feet of water in that wide river is a dramatic amount. It doesn’t appear that this particular crest will threaten Mount Vernon very much as the city is very well prepared for floods, but the river flows are dramatically high and officials are keeping an eye on conditions. Emergency management teams have been activated. Our son, as director of the library for Mount Vernon, is part of the city’s emergency management team and has participated in meetings where various options and possible scenarios have been discussed in preparation.

For us there is no real inconvenience except that we aren’t used to the rain falling day after day. Our home is high and dry and we are comfortable. We don’t need to drive in any of the places where there is water over the road. The bridges we cross are high and safe from dangerous erosion.

Six months ago, we were reading the news of towns evacuated because of wild fire and now we are reading of towns evacuated due to flooding. Of course the two conditions are related. When the number of trees is reduced by fire, the danger of flooding increases. The forest is key to the land’s ability to absorb all of the rainfall.

As a newcomer, I'm tempted to go and look at the high rivers. I’m trying to imagine what it looks like to see all of that water flowing by. I’m curious about how it looks when the flood walls are erected. I’m tempted to hop in the car and go take a look. However, as a newcomer, I also know that too many gawkers can create problems and that officials don’t need us to get in the way with emergency operations. For now the plan is to stay at home, listening to the rain on the skylights in our kitchen, as the waters rise. I know several web sites where I can check the latest news of the flooding and see pictures of familiar places with lots of high water.

In the winter in South Dakota we used to say to our friends, “Stay warm!” I guess now that we live in a different place with different weather, we’ll have to change our parting words to, “Stay dry!”