Category: Weather

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Sunday/ it’s hydrangea time

My hydrangea is still going strong, and its beautiful summer flowers are coloring up.

My hydrangea’s flowers are mostly pink. Hydrangea flower color changes based on the pH in soil. Acidic soil with a pH of 5.5 or lower will sprout blue hydrangeas; soil in between 5.5 and 6.5 will have purple hydrangeas, and a ph of 6.5 or higher will produce pink hydrangeas. White hydrangeas can not be manipulated by soil pH -they will always be white because they do not contain pigment for color.
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Friday/ a summery May

We have had summery weather this May. It has been drier and hotter than normal all month here in the Pacific Northwest.

The measured 0.12 in of rain for May ties the record low from 1992. (The number will barely budge, with almost no rain expected through the end of the month). Metric Conversion: 56 °F is 13 °C, 61.5 °F is 16.5 °C.  Yes, not very warm, but warmer than normal. (Mr Squirrel on the fence has his home in my backyard fir tree. Eastern grey squirrels are crepuscular, meaning they are active in the early and late hours of the day, so as to avoid the heat in summer.  They do not hibernate the way ground squirrels do, so I see them year-round).
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Monday/ save the rainwater

Residents of Cape Town recorded a record low water usage of 505 million litres (133 million US gals) for the city per day for last week. Still, the target is 450 million litres per day (50 litres/ 13 US gallons per person per day).

Day Zero (no water for faucets) continues to be pushed out, and the winter rainy season has started – but it is still uncertain how much rain it will bring.

Dam Levels in the Western Cape on May 7. The big red boxes at the top says This Week 16.5% | Last Week 16.6% | Last Year 20%. If only that giant Theewaterskloof dam could come up to the 47.6% level of the little Wemmershoek dam! [Graphic by Grafika24, from Die Burger newspaper]
Here’s a sign I saw yesterday for a new apartment building here in Seattle, called Stack House. I think these big rainwater tanks should become part of the building code for big buildings – and hey, for houses, as well.
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Thursday/ that was the high, for now

The day temperature got up to 82 °F (28°C) on Thursday, tying the calendar day record for Seattle set back in 1947.  But now our little Indian summer is over, and we will drop back to 66°F (18°C) on Friday, and even lower over the weekend.

These tulips around the corner of my house make for bright splashes of color. We should all plant more flowers in our gardens, the scientists say: it will help honey bees everywhere to survive. There is still no single proposal for the cause of the collapse of bee colonies, that has gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community.
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Monday/ it’s warming up

It was a beautiful Monday here in Seattle, and there is more sunshine ahead in the next few days, say the meteorologists.

This picture is from Sunday afternoon (quiet in downtown). New bike lanes are still getting added; this one runs along 7th Ave. The new white building that is reflected off the glass of the US District Court Building, is the new Hyatt Regency Seattle. It will have 45 floors and 1,260 rooms, making it the city’s largest hotel.
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Friday/ the snow in the North Cascades

Washington State Dept of Traffic recently tweeted a picture of State Route 20 at the Early Winter Spires. The road is closed for winter, but they will evaluate next week what needs to be done to start clearing the road.  I compared their picture with mine, which I took on a road trip last year.

Left: Picture from WSDOT, the Spires as seen from an airplane.
Right: My picture from Sept last year, from a viewpoint from across the Early Winter Spires.
The big asterisk * marks the location of the pictures. It looks as if 19% more snow than normal, had fallen there this 2017/18 winter season. [Prepared by USDA/ NRCS]
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Wednesday/ more snow

There is another dusting of snow on the ground tonight. The city of Seattle gets an inch (or more) of snow in February, in about 1 out of 4 years .. so looks like this would be one of those years.

The view from my house here on Capitol Hill, at around 10 pm on Wednesday night.
The top of the rail along my back yard deck serves as a nice snow gauge.

Thu morning 2/22:  My unofficial ‘snow gauge’ shows that an amount just shy of 1 ½ in of snow, fell on Wednesday night.

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Sunday/ winter bites back

We had a little sleet and snow mix here in the city today – somewhat unusual for February – and the temperature only went up to 38 °F/ 3°C. There was bright sun with clear blue skies in the afternoon.  I ventured out for a walk, but the icy wind made me turn around and go home after a few blocks.

The view out my back door at about noon today (left). A little while later, fine snow came down, just enough to stick to the lawn and sidewalk out in front of my house (right).
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Geseënde Kersfees! Merry Christmas!

The drawing is from inside the cover of ‘Die Mooiste Afrikaanse Sprokies/ The Most Beautiful African Fairytales’, published in 1968 by Human & Rousseau.

P.S.  It’s a white Christmas in Seattle, with an inch or two of snow falling overnight in the city.  White Christmases are rare in Seattle, but in 2008 four inches of snow blanketed the city on Christmas Day.

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Friday/ sunshine!

Mr Squirrel sunning himself on my garage roof. (Eastern Gray Squirrel, sciurus carolinensis). With the neighbors’ maple tree out, a lot more sunshine is coming into my backyard – but the squirrels no longer have the seeds to forage on.

A series of cloudy and rainy fronts weather is set to roll over Seattle the next several days.

So when the sun came out from under the clouds today, I said to myself: get out of the house now! go get some sun!

Sun, and blue sky! This is early afternoon on 17th Ave in Capitol Hill (temp. 51°F/ 11 °C).
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Friday/ first snow, early

Scarf weather is definitely here! The high was only 44 °F/6°C today, with the winter’s first snow on the lawn this morning. Later in the day, big fluffy snowflakes sifted down, some of it sticking to the surface of the deck in my backyard.

Big snowflakes coming down at about 1 pm today at my house. The first measurable in Seattle usually falls in December (and some winters we actually get no snow at all in the city), so it is very early for the first snow of the season.

 

 

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Monday/ California’s wildfires

Man! Hurricanes, floods (and Las Vegas) have already made 2017 an annus horribilis. Even so, Sunday and Monday brought more disaster : one of the most destructive fire emergencies in California’s history.  Some 15 fast-moving wildfires have now scorched 94,000 acres (146 sq mi) and destroyed 1,500 buildings.  At least 10 people were killed, over 100 were taken to hospitals, and some 20,000 were forced to evacuate.

The main picture from a California Highway Patrol helicopter, shows the total destruction in a Santa Rosa neighborhood. From a video clip frame, I used the street signs & fire hydrant on the After picture, to find the ‘Before’ picture (on Google Street View) of the beautiful houses there, now all burnt to ashes. Santa Rosa is one hour north of San Francisco (map from the New York Times). Most residents were under immediate evacuation orders.
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Sunday/ light jacket weather

Here’s a collage of pictures from my random walk around Seattle downtown this afternoon.  It was sunny but only 60°F/ 15°C, so ‘light jacket’ weather. ‘Scarf weather’ is coming, sometime in November.

Clockwise from top left: iconic Pike Place Market sign | Cloudburst microbrewery on Western Ave, with a hole-in-the-wall beer hall downstairs | long-ago furniture store turned into offices | Bladerunner 2049 at the Cinerama (will go see it there next weekend) | construction truck mirror near Denny Way | new billboard for Amazon Web Services off Denny Way | is this a ‘Christmas’ pedestrian crossing? this at c/r of Boren & Howell | yellow & green on Amazon Tower II | monorail from Space Needle, going to downtown.
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Tuesday/ my new silver shadows

I am trying again to add greenery to the front of my house, and my gardener recommended astelias (‘silver shadow’).  I have to keep an eye on them and keep them watered, since the rainy season is not yet in full swing here.

The young Astelia (‘silver shadows’) in front of my house.  (The darker ones in between are fillers until the astelia gets bigger. They go by several names, such as coral bells and amethyst). The astelia (sliver shadow) is originally from New Zealand, and an evergreen perennial that forms a clump to 3 feet tall by about 4 feet wide with bold, metallic silvery-green recurved leaves.
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Thursday/ last days of summer

Dry flower arrangement from ones trimmed off my potted plants. (The water is just for counterbalance, so that the jar does not tip over easily!).
Almost 3/4 of an inch of rain in one day is a ‘lot’! .. compared to 0.02 for all of July and August.

It’s getting cooler here in the Pacific Northwest, and the first big weather system will move in this weekend, bringing rain to the parched forests on the Olympic Peninsula and lawns in the cities (such as mine).

Meanwhile, the very long road to recovery for the flooded and damaged parts of Texas and Florida, and the devastated islands in the Caribbean has started.

Newspaper USA Today reports that for the first time in 300 years, there is not a single person on the tiny island of Barbuda (pop. 1,800). Every last one was evacuated, after 95% of the structures there, had been destroyed by hurricane Irma.

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Sunday/ landfall in Florida

It was a perfect day in Seattle: not too hot, not too cold, blue sunny sky.
Of course: a different story on the other side of the continent down south; a very bad weather day in Florida.  Here is a collage of a few interesting pictures of the hurricane that I ran across on-line.

Irma was battering the Tampa Bay area late Sunday night; Storm surges flooded downtown Miami and the winds left 2 million households without power (pictures: New York Times); Manatee stranded in Tampa Bay after 4 ft of water drawn out of the bay by the hurricane; the manatee was later helped to the deep water by 5 people (picture by Tony Foradini-Campos on Facebook); flamingos at the Tampa Bay Zoo marched to a protected enclosure (picture by NBC News); a pair of parrots sheltering against a high-rise window (picture by ABC News); Check it out! No air traffic whatsoever, over the entire Florida (diagram from FlightAware).

 

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Saturday/ almost here

Graphic from the New York Times, showing Irma’s position at 2 am on Sunday.

The wait is almost over (for Irma’s landfall in Florida) .. the latest tracking has hurricane Irma has Key West in the cross hairs, pass on the east of Ft Myers and Naples, and then hit St Petersburg and Tampa.

Florida Governor Rick Scott urged people on the coast all day Thursday and Friday to get out, and hundreds of thousands did, but many still stayed in their homes. The big problem is the storm surge that will surely flood thousands of homes on the Keys, and those on right on the Gulf of Mexico.

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Friday/ Irma update

Check out the Washington Post’s free updates for Hurricane Irma, here.  Late Friday night the storm system was brushing by the north of Cuba. (It devastated Barbuda, St Martin and the Turks & Caicos Islands).   It is expected to make landfall on Sunday morning in Florida (but storm conditions will start to appear on Saturday).  The latest modeling has shifted its landfall slightly to the west — but all of Florida will feel the effects of the hurricane.