Good morning.

I'm Cedric and This is your EM Morning Brief for Thursday, December 18, 2025 a high impact Pacific storm continues to drive flooding rains into western Washington and northwest Oregon today while strong winds and mountain snows spread across the Northern Rockies and into the Northern Plains.

NWS offices maintain flood warnings, coastal flood advisories, high wind products and winter hazards across the region.

The Weather Prediction center highlights a slight risk of excessive rainfall for parts of western Oregon into far northwest California with renewed small stream and urban flooding possible farther east.

Blizzard wind headlines continue today for portions of North Dakota and nearby Montana.

South Dakota with whiteout conditions and hazardous wind chills.

Regionally high winds and saturated soils have already produced major outages and fatalities across the Northwest.

Seismically, USGS shows routine small US earthquakes over the past day with no magnitude 5 US events.

Let's run through the states.

California Northern coastal counties trend wetter again late today into Friday as another wave brings moderate to locally heavy rain.

NWS notes a low 15% chance of minor urban small stream flooding with that round morning.

Dense fog lingers in portions of the Bay Area and central coast valleys.

Expect visibility drops through late morning.

Colorado A high wind warning remains in effect for Front Range mountain zones with peak gusts 60 to 85 miles per hour.

Anticipated impacts include difficult travel for high profile vehicles and sporadic power outages where lines are vulnerable.

Idaho Southeast and eastern Idaho face winter storm and high wind headlines today with blowing snow and hazardous travel on exposed routes.

Localized power disruptions are possible where winds down trees.

One wind related fatality was reported in Idaho amid this week's regional wind event.

Minnesota Blizzard and marine storm warnings affect the arrowhead and nearshore Lake Superior waters today with with heavy freezing spray and gale to storm force gusts.

Montana Whiteout conditions ease this morning as blizzard warnings expire in far northeast Montana but hazardous travel persists with drifting enclosures reported earlier.

Winds remain strong and wind chills dangerous.

North Dakota Blizzard warnings continue today for parts of central and north central North Dakota with gusts reducing visibility to near zero and creating life threatening wind chills.

Travel remains dangerous to impossible in open country.

Oregon High winds today across the Coast, Coast Range, Willamette Valley and Stub U. Washington Lowlands.

Saturated soils raise the risk for downed trees and outages.

A coastal flood advisory runs 8am to 4pm For Clatsop, Tillamook and adjacent coasts.

Additional heavy rain keeps flood concerns elevated through Friday.

South Dakota Northern and eastern counties sit under blizzard High wind headlines today with ground blizzard conditions in open areas and hazardous crosswinds on I 29 and regional highways.

Washington Western Washington remains in response and early recovery from record flooding, while new rounds of gusty winds and showers today keep trees and saturated slopes unstable.

Multiple river flood warnings and coastal flood advisories remain in effect.

Regional reporting confirms hundreds of rescues, widespread evacuations and and extensive power outages this week.

Wyoming High wind warnings continue this morning for southeast wyoming with gusts 65 to 80 plus miles per hour possible in wind prone corridors including I25, I80 gaps.

All other states have no significant updates in the last 24 hours.

We'll keep watch on northwest flooding, wind impacts and Plains blizzard conditions through tonight.

Source links are in the show notes below.

Stay safe.