North Coast Island

Snapshot near Yosemite suggests what our skies
were like--but brighter than this.  Other snaps
from Yosemite make it look like Mars.

Hot winds were forecast to sweep across the Northwest and far northern California on Tuesday and Wednesday, so PG&E initiated one of their Public Safety Power Shutdowns, in which they take the juice out of power lines in areas where the wind and heat could enable forest fires.

This outage was scheduled to last from midnight Monday/Tuesday to Wednesday evening.  If this was last year, we wouldn't have power now, but in the interim our local alternative-fuel power plant was able to go into "island mode" and supply power directly to much of Humboldt County, particularly Arcata, Eureka and other towns.  Nevertheless, some 3,000 county residents did lose power, according to the Times Standard.

The winds did come in, and the fires that were burning are expanding, and new fires have begun--many fires, in Oregon, Washington and California.  As one result, major roads in and out of our area are closed at some point north or south, including the 101 (the most direct north/south route) and the 5 (the largest, that extends north and south but considerably east of us.)  So we are an island again.

But so far a lucky one.  We were forecast to have a record breaking high today, though a lot of place would consider 85 pretty temperate these days.  But a layer of high smoke filtered sunlight and kept things much cooler.  Otherwise we might have experienced what the southern Oregon coast did, a record-breaking 93.

We also have no fires or fire danger that close to us, at least at this time and probably this year.  On the other hand, I still hear local idiots shooting off their fireworks so who can say. (That's just how a southern California fire started that has burned 10,000 acres and counting.) We've already had some supply line problems from the closed highways but with minimal impact.

On Tuesday, the smoke turned the island world a strange brownish yellow. Walking Howdy, I noticed eerie glints on car surfaces that turned out to be sunlight, the strength of street light reflections.  The air quality here near the coast is judged to be moderate so far.  The smoke is forecast to stay overnight.  If it clears out tomorrow, the forecast is sunny and warmer than usual, though not higher than 80.  But nobody can really predict the smoke's behavior.