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Rare severe thunderstorms roll through the Pacific Northwest
WashingtonGDELTGDELT event0% biasedFri, May 29, 2026, 12:00 AM
0 of 15 sentences classified as biased · Model: roberta-anno-lexical-ft-v1
Rare severe thunderstorms roll through the Pacific Northwest.Rare severe thunderstorms roll through the Pacific Northwest WASHINGTON STATE — Rare severe thunderstorms rolled through the Pacific Northwest Thursday night, bringing hundreds of lightning strikes, wind gusts over 60 mph and large and potentially damaging hail to the region.Building heat with highs in the 90s in the Columbia Basin Thursday afternoon interacted with an incoming low pressure center pushing into the region from California.This unusual pairing created the atmospheric dynamics we needed to trigger "supercell" style thunderstorms in Oregon, Washington and Idaho by Thursday evening.As such, an overall SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH was in place for cities like Spokane, Yakima and Wenatchee.Radar detection software indicated cloud tops extending over 40,000 feet into the atmosphere from the exploding cumulonimbus structures.Beneath them, downburst wind gusts accelerated to 50 mph or more.Northwest storm chasers Michael Snyder and Mark Stewart encountered the severe storms, noting the copious lightning and hail that measured around an inch in diameter.Radar indicated pockets of hail falling near farmland in Odessa approaching a whopping 1.5" in diameter, which is roughly the size of a ping pong ball.Crop, car and structure damage might be evident by morning.These storms will continue to march northwest overnight, leaning into the Cascade crest.Some rain will definitely make it into the Sound before dawn, but the chance for lightning and hail will diminish as the atmosphere cools off.Regardless, we should see at least some hail and lightning for Western Washington, particularly for the foothills of eastern King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.The rain will bring temperatures down into the upper 50s near Seattle on Friday.Skies will settle down throughout the course of the day, and we'll brighten and warm again for the final weekend of May.