Smoke

A few mornings ago, while doing yoga in the pre-dawn light on my deck, I was surprised to see a smokey cast to the light.

This is familiar enough during the fire season, but BC has so far had a very wet time and I was puzzled as to where the fire could be.  I checked on the US forestry Service’s heat detection satellite website, but could find nothing at all in our province.

The next day, the smoke was thicker.  The sun rose as a red ball.

And the mountains at the head of the lake were barely visible.

This went on for two days.  There was a hot and gusty wind.  The smoke was covering all of the southern half of the province, but no one seemed to know where it was coming from.  News items first said Western US especially California.  Then I heard Utah and Colorado.  But the winds here were west and southwest.  How could they be blowing smoke from Colorado?  Yesterday, a plane came in and the pilot said the high jetstreams were carrying smoke across the Pacific from the paddy fields in China (where they burn off the old straw before planting).  Then I got an email saying it was coming from Siberia.

The wind banged around all night and this morning was warm and extremely buggy.  However, I was much relieved to see the sky was clear in the east.

The west was still a bit murky; the top of Mt Monarch was cut off.

sunrise hiding Mt Monarch

But now, close to midday, even that has cleared, and it was as if the smoke had never been.

 

 

2 thoughts on “Smoke”

  1. we still have the smoke lingering around Victoria and Sidney. The Olympics are not visible most of the time, and the local news just reported that, as you said, the smoke is coming from Siberian fires.

  2. Hi Chris
    Thanks for the great photos as always you never fail to impress.
    The other day I went for a walk and the air was still and it was 18c
    but I looked up at the sky the clouds were moving so fast.I’ve
    never seen clouds travel so fast unless there’s a snow storm and
    it’s windy.I noticed other people on the street looking up in amazement
    as well. We phoned around but no one knew what happened not even
    the weather folks.If you look up strange weather on Youtube,
    (if you haven’t already)…you’ll see some strange things happening on
    earth these days. Have you heard about all the strange sounds on
    earth as well?
    Chris I’ve always wanted to know if you’ve seen ufo. I’ve never
    believed this stuff before but I saw one last year and now I wonder
    if others in the country side have because you see more sky, more
    of the time. The phenomenon isn’t considered crazy anymore
    because France and UK and South America have released their
    ufo files to the public. I’m rambling as I usually do.
    Love you and your books and your blog and dogs and photos
    Monika

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