‘Atmospheric rivers’ threaten new floods in hard-hit Washington state

Western areas still assessing millions of dollars' worth of damage from flooding earlier this month

Residents in Washington state were on Saturday preparing for possible flooding as atmospheric rivers" once again threatened parts of the US north-west, which saw heavy damage from such extreme weather earlier this month.

Flood watches were issued for much of western and north-central Washington and the National Weather Service (NWS) warned that flooding was possible through Sunday in north-western Washington.