Overview

There's a really nice article about the dam removals, with good current photos. The local paper had a gorgeous photo of sediment outflow at the mouth of the Elwha River, but I can't find the story online, so offer you instead a really nice one about salmon jumping on the Sol Duc. The dam removal process is in a fish window for the rest of the year, to avoid stirring out more sediment, a precaution which seems silly given how much will be on the move anyway if rains continue.

It's been raining. Overcast, fog, rains so light nobody bothers with raincoats or umbrellas. We are looking great for precipitation up in the Olympics and the Cascades as the water year begins. But it hasn't been cold, so it hasn't snowed yet in the mountains. This is pretty much as we have been promised: as the climate changes, more floods because storms arrive solely as rain; less water storage in snowpack to carry through the summer.

Precipitation Map from Western Regional Climate Center. Look at all that blue in the Northwest (Click for larger image.)

Snowpack map. Not nearly so pleasing. (Click for larger image.)

There was a sunbreak the morning after I got home from Florida (I did eventually get home.) And there have been several brief ones since. Everyone looks out the door or window, and wishes each other, "Enjoy the sunshine." Then it is gone.

Out the window, November 1, 2012 (Click for larger image.)

Lots going on in the realms I don't talk about here.