Mass Events - Covid, Wild Fires, what else?

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Here in Oregon, in the last week, first we had about 3 to 4 days of extremely dry and strong easterly winds blowing between 25 mph to 45 mph. Since we haven't had any rain for probably 45 days or so, everything is extremely dry.

These winds dried everything out even more than it was. Now we have some pretty serious wildfires going on in the general area of north west Oregon.

The air smells really foul right now and the sky looks like there's a deep fog around everything, but there no moisture in the air. It's all smoke from the fires.


Today I went outside into my back yard briefly at about 1 pm and while I was out there, I thought I'd look up to see the sun and surprisingly, I did see it. Then we tried to get a photo of it but the sun just didn't turn in the photo and neither did the correct color of the sky.

In the graphic below, I've created, as best as I can, the color of the sky and the sun that I saw at that time. It's bizarre to see a dull pink sun in a dull orange sky.


We're all safe and good here, but I have to say, the year 2020 sure is shaping up to be quite the year.

Talk about Mass Events. Wow.

-jbseth

[Sena]

We're all safe and good here, but I have to say, the year 2020 sure is shaping up to be quite the year.

jbseth, glad to hear you and those close to you are safe.

[jbseth]

Thanks Sena, 

-jbseth

[Deb]

The air smells really foul right now and the sky looks like there's a deep fog around everything, but there no moisture in the air. It's all smoke from the fires.

Wow, that's a pretty crazy view (illustration) of the sun in mid day!

We've had a lot of smoke here in Colorado for a few months, but not like that. At first we were getting smoke from the California wildfires. Then we had several serious wildfires of our own, and the air got pretty suffocating. A strong smell of smoke, thick gluey white skies, whatever sunlight that managed to come through was pinkish orange. We usually get summer fires since it's so dry here, and the only "nice" thing about smoke in the air is the soft orange glow of sunlight and beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

We've had record-breaking temps this summer, no rain. It was around 100° over the weekend, as usual, and then Monday night a cold front came in from Canada and we had snow and freezing temps (70° temp drop between Monday and Tuesday!). The mountains got enough snow to contain the wildfires and as of today, I see blue sky again.

Glad you're all safe jbseth! I realize 20/20 is hindsight, so I'm curious what we'll be talking about what we "learned" this year once everything settles down.   And I can't imagine a "what else," I think we've had enough.

I'm attaching a dramatic photo of the Stanley Hotel from Sept. 8, the smoke is from the Cameron Peak fire, colored by the sunset.

[Michael Sternbach]

We've had record-breaking temps this summer, no rain. It was around 100° over the weekend, as usual, and then Monday night a cold front came in from Canada and we had snow and freezing temps (70° temp drop between Monday and Tuesday!). The mountains got enough snow to contain the wildfires and as of today, I see blue sky again.

Hi Deb

Isn't nature amazing?!

[Deb]

Yes it is. Pretty much perfect.

[wanderer]

Glad you're all safe jbseth! I realize 20/20 is hindsight, so I'm curious what we'll be talking about what we "learned" this year once everything settles down.   And I can't imagine a "what else," I think we've had enough.

I think this year is generating enough hindsight to last for the next 100 years!

Bashar comments that 20/20 also applies to clarity of forward vision.  In this, we are collectively engaging an industrial-grade squeegee to scrape the muck of millennia from our windshield!

The young Yahyel lady Hylah put it nicely: everything is being put on the table.  If this be a drop-leaf table, I think we need to raise the leaves!