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Weather

supersailor

Contributing Partner
I just looked on the National weather map. HOLLY COW! The West is on fire everywhere except for one spot where it is flash flooding. The South just suffered a major hurricane with an unprecedented rain dump and now the East is about to get raked by a monster hurricane.

Is everyone still ok? :0
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
The smoke has been pretty bad at times for the last month, but for the last week, the air quality index has been hovering between 280 (hazardous) to 320 (harmful). No aerobic exercise since last Friday. The boat is fueled and provisioned in case we have to evacuate, but that threat seems to be diminishing.
The Columbia River downstream from here was actually closed to navigation for a few days - I've never heard of that before. Commercial shipping is being let through one at a time now. Cruise ships and tugboats were stacked up at our marina for a couple of days, but the smoke was too thick to take photos!
Here's a few snaps from last Sunday's sail, before things got really bad. (Since then, visibility has been zero and the sun - when visible - has just been an orange dot.)

Burned fir needles and ash on the deck from a fire 20 miles away:
IMG_1799.jpg

Skies have been like this for a month:
IMG_1806.jpg

The cloud of doom descending on us:
IMG_1802.jpg

Since then, we have been inside that cloud. Coughing, scratchy throats, burning eyes. It's getting really old. The air smells like soggy charcoal. About ready to drive to the airport and take the first flight to... well that's the problem, isn't it?
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
Since then, we have been inside that cloud. Coughing, scratchy throats, burning eyes. It's getting really old.

Same here, western WA. It has been "snowing ash" for a couple of days now, sky outside is a gloomy gray with an angry-and-eerie-looking blood-red sun trying to poke through.

As one who struggles with asthma on a *good* day, this is... interesting.

Bruce
 

Cory B

Sustaining Member
More ash.

We're in Portland, safely away from the fire, but not the ash and smoke. I checked out the boat yesterday. I had left a few ports open to let it air out over the summer and now there are small piles of ash inside under them - I have some cleanup to do.

I can't imagine what it would be like to have the fire at your doorstep or looking at a weather map and seeing a hurricane coming at you.

Here's a pic I took of the deck-
 

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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
More on the burning forest

My dock neighbors just updated their boat blog, and have some excellent pix of the initial growth of the fire in the Gorge.
https://gypsykramer.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/fire-or-smoke-gets-in-your-eyes/

The ash did cause quite a mess around our moorage, in line for east winds out of the Gorge, beside the PDX airport. As one member observed, now we get ash to combine with the jet exhaust. :rolleyes:
It was (so far) only really bad on one day, but as you can see that caused quite a mess. I fear that anyone leaving this on their canvas will have some staining that will be difficult to remove.

Sad note: the fire is ID'd as an arson fire now, and as of this am is finally considered 5% contained. Five. Per cent.
 

supersailor

Contributing Partner
I notice I-84 is still closed. That's hard on Hood River. The people have no way out. What's happening back east?
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
Well, we can't drive 84 towards Portland. It's still open in the other direction. As are 35 and 14. Some of the gas stations are running low on fuel, however. The fire is very close to the BPA main transmission line. Last time that line went out (ice storm), the whole area was without power for three weeks. It sounds like the crews are conducting burn-out operations around the transmission towers, which makes things look worse but actually is getting better.

Edit: Argh... they've expanded the evacuation zones again, Level 1 up to the West end of Hood River. Thinking about safe places to move the boat to, such that it would be in the line of any hypothetical retreat.
 
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ThatJeffGuy

Member II
Hopefully all is still well...

I have been watching the interesting sunsets up here on Lake Superior, but thankfully all we have is the impending doom of winter. I feel like it is going to be a long cold, snowy winter. Are you mostly year round out in Portland? I know they get snow that way.

IMG_1916_sm.jpg

Other than it alternating between 60 degrees and rain/80 and dead calm/50 degrees and moist/ back to work. It has been a fun fall.
 

toddster

Curator of Broken Parts
Blogs Author
Sunsets like this one?

You mean like this one last night? Actually that's as clear as it's been here for weeks. Went paddle boarding for a couple of hours, in light ash-fall and started feeling like I had the flu by the time I was done. The phone cam didn't seem to capture the dull throbbing redness of it all. Note the top of the mushroom cloud at upper left. These seem to form every afternoon, as the fire blows up another valley. Only one valley left now between the fire and town, but they say the weather will turn (for sure this time) tomorrow or the next day and the fire will start dying out. Or maybe the next day.

IMG_1813.jpg

OK, "A" week. It just seems like months.
 
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