Wet weather postpones start of Seattle’s ‘summer of lane closures’

Thanks to the rain forecast all weekend, Seattle’s “summer of lane closures,” as WSDOT spokesperson Amy Moreno called it, won’t start this weekend after all.

Contractors for the state’s transportation department were slated to begin work this weekend to replace 35 of Interstate 5’s legacy steel-plated expansion joints with modern epoxy-tipped joints, and 10 more joints on ramps.

The Washington State Department of Transportation said Friday that the scheduled work and lane closures will be postponed due to poor weather.

The announcement comes amid a notably cold and wet stretch. In fact, 90 mph winds and a temperature of 18 degrees recorded at Camp Muir made Mount Rainier the coldest spot in the U.S. on Thursday, factoring in wind chill, the local weather service said on Twitter.

And there’s no big change in sight for the weekend — or even through all of next week.

A rain system is expected to continue through Saturday. Sunday will be “slightly drier but still wet,” said meteorologist Mary Butwin.

And the unsettled pattern continues through most, if not all, of next week thanks to an upper-level trough from Canada that seems stuck over us, she said.

“We do our forecast through Friday,” she said, “and I don’t see a full day of sun. There’s a lower chance of rain later in the week, but it’s still that off-and-on showery thing.”

This doesn’t mean, though, that the summer won’t be full of closures and severe congestion for drivers on southbound I-5 near Sodo most weekends as the state finishes the freeway repair project left over from last summer — just that it won’t start this weekend.

Staff reporter Mike Lindblom contributed to this report.