What about this amazing autumn sunshine? Yes friends sometimes the classic “indian summer” does happen in Western Washington! This whole week is slated for summerish temps in the mid eighties will bountiful buckets of golden sunshine.
Don’t get too cozy though October is staring us down 🙂 Those leaves are going to light up and Autumn will roar in with all those rusty hues of fall. If you want to see some lovely fall color outside the city, try the amazing Grist Mill in North County or take a mid to late October cruise into the Gorge. Multnomah Falls on the Oregon side is gorgeous in Autumn as is the spectacular overlook at Cape Horn here on our side of the river.
Last week Vancouver was engulfed in fire smoke with particulate matter off the charts busting up over 500 on the EPA chart deep into hazardous levels. Sunday morning, the EPA monitors showed us near the bottom of the chart at 18! Ah take a deep breath of that 🙂
That storm system brought some thunder and lightning but also some drenching rain which helped clear out the smoke and probably did a nice job in aiding the fire suppression efforts in nearby forest fires. A win all around!
This is the final day of official summer as tomorrow marks the fall equinox. Does it seem like our trees got triggered early this year. Some fall color is already flashing. Did the fire smoke and subsequent darkness trick the trees into thinking it was October? Hmm… I wonder.
Enjoy the last bit of nice summery weather, friends, the autumn train is coming.
The Labor Day windstorm brought heavy winds from the east as you may remember those winds were packing gusts north of 65 mph. There was a fair bit a damage around town mostly in the form of downed trees and power lines. But the real damage was how those winds pushed several medium sized wildfires burning in the rugged cascades west merging into a big mega-fire now nipping at the SE Portland-Vancouver Metro suburbs of Oregon City, Clackamas, Estacada, and others. There has been substantial damage and loss of life due to this large complex of fires.
OxBlue cam at Angelo Tower site Sunday 12pm
Although Vancouver is relatively safe from that fire we are feeling the effects with the Portland-Vancouver area experiencing the worst air quality on the planet right now. The EPA says air quality is “unhealthy for sensitive people at 101, unhealthy for all at 151, very unhealthy at 201, and hazardous at 301. We have been sitting in the 400-525 range this past weekend around the metro area!
The good news is that a system is rolling in this week off the coast that should bring widespread rain across the region. Furthermore, the onshore flow will reverse the wind direction and likely push the spread of the fire back towards already burned ground. That coupled with some rain will hopefully put an end to the “super threat” this fire has had on larger populated areas.
This just goes to show that even though we are greener and wetter than our southern counterpart in the Golden State, we still can have massive scary fires here as well. Be safe and if COVID wasn’t enough to keep you inside, this should be.
Ah the ‘Couv’ life; it is good albeit smokey for the next couple days.
