Smoke on the water
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| By Thursday night. |
I spent a few days with friends at the beach this week. This allowed us to escape the heat, but not the smoke, that invaded Portland.
Smoke from the fire on Mount Hood blew west on the Gorge winds, and when it hit the mouth of the Columbia, it met up with the brisk afternoon north wind that you always get at the coast this time of year. This blew the hideous wildfire cloud straight down the beach line, to Newport and beyond.
The pollution started Monday midday, and it was fairly smoky down there until Wednesday, when the wind shifted a bit, coming more from the northwest, and cleared things out in pretty short order. Although it never got as bad as in Portland, it was noticeably unsatisfactory air for a couple of days there.
The on-shore flow was a great relief, but it didn't lead to a blue sky. When it gets into the 90's in the valley, fog tends to roll in off the ocean and sock everything in between the coast range and water. That's what happened in this instance.
By the time we returned to town today, things were clearing out pretty nicely until we hit Hillsboro, where the air became fouler than it had ever gotten out along the coast.
Like nearly everyone else, I've been on my phone looking at the particulate numbers more than the temperature readings to see how things are going outside. If we can just get a steady westerly breeze going tomorrow, we should be back into the green here in town, at least for a while.
I guess this is the new normal. And given who's in charge, it's only going to get worse. Like the song says, "They burnin' the planet down, Lord. Help me, Lord."
If you doom scroll, you should see what the trump cowboys on the east side of the state are claiming, that they're fighting fires all on their own. And that the stories about ranchers threatening firefighters just aren't true. Oh, to be a bird flying over those parts!
ReplyDeleteIn 1980, when Trump was irrelevant, our teenage son got a summer job on a cattle ranch on the "back side" of the Steens in Harney county. A buckaroo was fired, got drunk, and in revenge set haystacks on fire on the ranch's subirrigated pasture, igniting the whole tinder dry late August field. What started as a stop to pick up our 15 year old son on our way to a backpacking trip in Idaho became an all day fight against the smoldering field. Our armour was wet burlap sacks, that we submersed in the bubblers. Mid afternoon, after the neighboring Alvord Ranch had brought its own tanker, and all the other neighboring ranchers had pitched in to help, a BLM helecopter descended. Dispatched from Burns, the orange jumpsuited firefighters surveyed the situation, concluded that we had it well enough in hand that the surrounding federal sagebrush was not threatened. and lifted off, further fanning the flames. It took us and the other foetal MAGA jerks another three or so hours to finally snuff it completely out.
DeleteOf course it’s Trumps fault. It couldn’t possibly be the quiche eaters in Salem who have been in charge of the state for the last 30 years.
ReplyDeleteMAGA trolls are not worth arguing with.
DeleteSometimes trolls are funny.
DeleteAnd accurate.
DeleteWe are actually at a 25-year low in forest fire destruction. But this year was extremely dry in the West as a super El Nino is forming in the Pacific and causing changes to the jet stream. Not sure yet how that will affect our weather this fall, but we haven't seen one of these since I think the mid 60s.
ReplyDeletePlease don’t confuse the central political issue with climate stuff.
Delete