mount rainier washington earthquake swarm map july 8 2025

Earthquake swarm detected beneath Mount Rainier, Washington

A swarm of hundreds of small earthquakes was detected beneath the summit of Mount Rainier, Washington, starting at 01:29 LT (08:29 UTC) on July 8, 2025, prompting increased monitoring by the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

Snapshot of the simulated landfall of an atmospheric river along the west coast of North America on February 11, 2020. Credit: DOE Office of Science, Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project.

U.S. West flood risk increases sharply with wet soils during atmospheric river storms

Wet antecedent soil moisture increased streamflow magnitudes by 2–4.5 times during atmospheric river storms across 122 U.S. West Coast watersheds between 1980 and 2023, according to a new analysis. The study, published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology on June 4, 2025, establishes a nonlinear threshold effect in soil moisture, above which flood response to atmospheric rivers increases sharply.