THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS |
Remember last month’s flash wildfire in the Cascade foothills right above Greater Seattle? Well, 5+ weeks later it’s still burning and not even half contained.
Why?
Because at this time of year, the fall’s big rains are supposed to have started and put out all fires. Except that this year they haven’t.
As I’ve been writing for years now, global heating causes the Pacific Northwest climate to become more like its southern neighbor+sibling, the “original” Hot-Summer Mediterranean climate. But no one including me had expected the process to be so rapid.
- 2021’s devastating heat wave (reaching 46C in Portland, 43C in Seattle, and literally burning down that poor mountain town in B.C.) was deemed essentially impossible under historical PNW climate norms.
- This year, it turns out Seattle broke the record for the number of >32C (90F) days,...
- ...while in Portland it has been at 30+C nearly all summer and into October - something unheard of in living memory.
- Also, it has hardly rained since July 5. Experts say <10% of the average precipitation amount has fallen during this time. Western WA is now officially in D1 “Moderate Drought” conditions despite having started the summer with surplus water, and it feels even worse so I won’t be surprised if we get “upgraded” this week.
- And now 2022’s summer-end and fall-start — despite getting far fewer headlines than summer scorchers — is pushing us further and further away from anything remotely recognizable as “the mild PNW climate”.
On Oct. 13, Seattle tied the record for most 21C+ degree days (ok, ok, the definition is 70F) during the entire month of October. In case you’re wondering, that record is was 8 such days in a 31-day month. Then October 14th and 15th clocked in with max temps of 21C and 24C (75F). Today’s the 16th; it was already 27C at noon and continuing to rise. It’ll likely be a record-breaking day all on its own. “Unseasonably warm” doesn’t even begin to describe today’s freakish weather; although surprisingly, the air quality’s not terrible yet, this morning was an actual respite from yesterday which was downright awful. Ugh! I jynxed it — particulate matter is trending up now from “moderate” to “unhealthy for sensitive groups” as we speak.
UPDATE: indeed, Sunday’s heat shattered many records beyond the daily Oct. 16 one (which was apparently broken by no less than 15 degrees F).
Anyway, we’re already 3 days over the all-time October warm-days record, just as we’re crossing the mid-month mark. We’ll likely end this month with the number of “70-degree days” well into the teens, if not over 20, because we’re sitting under a stagnant high-pressure blocking pattern. I saw it described as either an “Omega Block” or a “Rex Block” — but frankly, I don’t need the official name. I know it in my bones having grown in Israel-Palestine. That’s how the air there feels like almost the entire time from late April to late October.
That’s on the unseasonably-hot front. The dryness front this year seems even worse and unprecedented to me — but we’ll tally this once that long-awaited rain finally comes. At the moment they forecast none before the 21st, and even then it seems pretty iffy.
Back to that Wildfire…
As said, the Bolt Creek Fire barely a stone’s throw from the PNW’s most populous metro area, is still burning. The river valley right south of it, the Skykomish River, connects to the Snoqualmie and Snohomish Valleys which arc around the eastern and northern edges of Greater Seattle. Whenever the air is stagnant, night-time chill sinks the fire smoke towards us. And whenever there are actually north or east winds, it blows them even more furiously towards us. Guess what’s the most common wind pattern here during a high-pressure block? Northerly.
We’ve been suffering ridiculously bad air quality during these 5 weeks and counting. And our Maple Leaf neighborhood, usually enjoying cooler cleaner air than most of the city, suffers now more than others because we’re the first stop in town for that northeasterly smoke funnel.
Watering Saplings by the Creek
I’ve shown before pictures from the lush canyon hiding in the heart of our Maple Leaf neighborhood, recently named Kingfisher Natural Area. For its smallish size and mid-neighborhood location, its dramatic and wild-looking nature and scenery still surprise me and give me joy, even after 11+ years of regularly visits.
Very sadly, my guide and beloved companion on most of these trips, Lila, passed away this spring, shy of 12 years young. She was still jumping around like a puppy until a few weeks before she succumbed to an aggressive tumor.
The only upside from my sadness is that I’ve finally started to volunteer more in restoration in the natural area. The lead organizer, Rick Swing, has been doing it for a decade. My pre-2022 participation was…. hm, very sporadic, but that has changed.
The volunteering is part of a city-wide Seattle Parks program by which local stewards work and lead work parties to uproot invasives and plant native plants. Each steward receives 250 saplings/year. Rick has another co-steward, so Kingfisher gets 500 saplings most years.
As spring advanced Rick told me they’re doing summer watering duties, b/c even historically-normal summers here are relatively dry. The odd heatwave or bone-dry spell can catch a few-months-old sapling unawares and poof, it’s gone.
I agreed to join — but then the spring was long and wet and chilly, and by the time it turned into a hot super-dry summer (relative to these parts), it had slipped my mind. Or I waited for an email. Or something.
But a few weeks ago I finally decided to just go down there and water. I know where the creek is, right? And I also knew where most of the new saplings are.
I brought an old half-broken watering can from home, filled it from the contraption shown in the title image, and off to seek distressed saplings. They were not hard to find!
How Dry is it?
As one of the pic caption complains, the iPhone camera I used does its darnest to “prettify” reality — make all colors vivid, brush away any blemish or dust — and I haven’t yet learned how to disable that crap. Which makes it challenging to visualize just how bad things are in the creek now, and elsewhere around these parts. But I’ve tried:
