Rain, wind to continue through Wednesday

Keep the umbrellas handy — heavy rain is here for another night.

The National Weather Service is forecasting up to three-quarters of an inch of rain overnight Tuesday in Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Westport.

“That’s a fairly high amount of rain, but it’s not something out of the ordinary,” said Josh Smith, Seattle National Weather Service meteorologist.

Ocean Shores could see as much as an inch of rain.

Accompanying the rain will be increased wind sustaining speeds of 15 mph with gusts up to 20 mph in Aberdeen.

Wind from 14 mph to 22 mph will blow across Ocean Shores, and gusts may reach 29 mph.

A gale warning will be in effect from 5 p.m., Sept. 23, through 3 a.m. Sept. 24.

Waves reaching 6-9 feet will be present tonight.

“They’ll be fairly high, but nothing extreme,” Smith said.

Swell waves will increase to 14-15 feet Wednesday night, but those are not related to the gale. The swells are expected to arrive in 13-second periods.

“A 15-foot swell is fairly big,” Smith said. “We haven’t seen any that large this summer.

“It will affect all boats — you don’t want to be out on the water.”

(A small craft advisory will be in effect Wednesday from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

The rain is forecast to subside tomorrow (less than a tenth of an inch is in the Wednesday forecast), however, wind will remain through Wednesday night, gusting to 18 mph in Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Westport.

Gusts as high as 20 mph will continue through Thursday in Ocean Shores.

“If you’re a mariner, you’ll want to pay attention to the waves,” Smith said. “But for the general public, we’re going to get wet.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website had a “short range forecast discussion” warning of a “sprawling cyclone bearing down on the Pacific Northwest coast.”

The discussion (which went on to say the “giant storm” would “lash the coastline” with wind and rain) was shared locally on Facebook on Tuesday.

National Weather Service officials do not expect conditions to match the intensity of the discussion’s vocabulary.

“We’re going to get a lot of rain, but that discussion makes the storm sound a lot more catastrophic than it is,” Smith said.