Category: View

Banking on snow

The snowline on the Olympic Mountains has crept lower lately. Usually this is transient and the lower reaches — down to about 2,000 feet (roughly 610 meters) — don’t stay blanketed for long. But the upper mountains are building up a substantial snowpack. For this time of year it’s the highest in any of Washington state’s mountains. Based on water content in the snowpack, the Olympics are at 268% of normal, a great running start for providing summer and fall water for fisheries, recreation, and local municipalities.

Summer with a vengeance

We’re sharing Canada’s misery. As of yesterday afternoon there were around 23 wildfires burning in British Columbia. Easterly winds have brought the smoke onto the Olympic Peninsula, hidden the mountains, and made air quality somewhere in the range from poor to downright terrible. The view into the Dungeness Recreation Area looks foggy here but that’s smoke. These conditions have occurred before but this is the worst I’ve experienced since my days in California where the state underwent regular incineration.

And yesterday was my hottest day yet in Sequim. The number on the upper left is the outside temp, 99 degrees Fahrenheit…or 37 for those who operate in Celsius. We don’t get temperatures like this here. Not usually.

Ignore that rain icon in the middle. Our weather station seems to throw that in regularly just to keep things interesting.

The long view

On a clear day you can look across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and see all the way to the whitecapped Canadian Coastal Mountains. Between here and there are the San Juan Islands and the occasional passing ship.

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Really, I post every day!
I’ve heard from several people lately that they haven’t gotten current posts when they’ve visited this blog. I’ve had the same problem. I spent time with my web host tech support to troubleshoot. According to them, the problem was with my computer system which, they say, is “lazy” and does not automatically refresh to show new posts. I was instructed to clear my browser history (Google “clear browser history” for instructions). This helped but has not solved the problem. I find I can access the current post by hitting the “refresh” button on the browser. Alternatively, click on “Home” on the upper right hand corner of the blog post.

If anyone out there is more technically proficient and can explain why this is occurring and how to fix it, I’d certainly appreciate further information! And, no…a new computer is not in the budget.