We had a pretty healthy squall move through today. I grabbed some aerial footage before it hit and then rendered a variety of time lapses from the ground. Mother nature is pretty awesome up close.... Best view in HD here: http://www.skunkbayweather.com/Squall0325.mp4
I was very surprised to see a faint Aurora show on last night's time lapse. The KP level was very low.... It was also a beautiful evening. Thought I would share this one.... Best watched full screen here: http://www.skunkbayweather.com/FaintNL032518.mp4
The squall that moved through today was filled with beauty and energy. I was able to capture it from three different perspectives. First, it started with an awesome rainbow:
Then, the rain subsided for a brief window where I could take some aerial video. This is probably the most interesting perspective. It is best viewed full screen here:
Looking out at the gray and rainy day we are having today... I thought I would post a video from yesterday. It was so beautiful out. Best watch full screen in HD here: A Beautiful Day In The Pacific NorthWet . Watch for the eagles at the top of the tree on the way up and at the end of the video again where they finally fly away.
This morning I found a new use for my drone.I was getting ready to go fishing and fog started settling in…I decided to put my drone
up to see how bad it was.Fortunately it
was clear directly above me so I could put it up safely.Fog in action from above is beautiful….Thought I would share this…. We live in Mother Nature's paradise....
So... You are probably all wanting to ask how I did fishing.... ;)
Unfortunately, I think I went over my limit..... Don't tell the game warden.... I caught 3 seals today... I think the limit is two.....;) One nailed a small 20" chinook.... The next one nailed about an 8-9lb chinook that I chased for 20 minutes or so.... Finally he held up the fish about 20ft. away like he wanted me to take a picture of his "trophy" catch.... Then, I had another 8-9lb chinook on up close to the boat. This seal was kind enough to leave me with the head..... At least I can use it for crab bait.... (Picture Below) For those that don't know, seals and sea lions follow sport fishing boats and when they are playing a fish, they go after it.... Always been a problem but it has gotten out of hand..... The resident Orcas are dying... Wild salmon populations are becoming extinct.... In fact.... even with the incredible work of many hatcheries, the salmon population is declining..... Yet.... We continue to protect and feed the predator that is decimating one of the most valuable resources in the Northwest. It is time to start controlling the population of this out of control predator..... Meanwhile... Here is my catch of the day....
Thought I would share a couple of things this morning. Yesterday afternoon we had a plane fly by BELOW our house..... We have a 40' bank and it is below that. It was less than 200' from our bank too.... In this case, FAA regs state that it needs to be 500' above and away from any structures. If he was 500' away from the bank he could be at the deck. As a drone operator, this makes me even more cautious. My drone was right in his flight path last week. It is my responsibility to yield, but when a plane is coming by at 100mph below tree top level, I would have had very little time to respond at 20mph.... Unfortunately there isn't enough detail in these photos to get his number.
Last night resulted in a pretty nice video showing incredible stars, a faint Aurora, a few small meteors and watch closely at the beginning there is some nice virga (rainfall that evaporates before it hits the ground)....
Edit: 3/7/18 7:00AM The video and images from yesterday have gotten a lot of attention. Cliff Mass does a nice job of peaking my curiosity of what drones might be capable of in his blog this morning: Cliff Mass's Blog On Weather Drones Scott Sistek and KOMO used the videos and images yesterday on his blog and gives a very nice FOG 101 lesson...
Scott Sistek's "Fog Blog" WeatherNationTV is running some of this content today as well.______________________________________ 3/6/18 This morning it was clear out front, but thought I would put the drone up to see what was out there... It was quite a surprise. This is video is a little over 2 minutes... The sights are incredible from 390'....
Edit: 9:45AM 3/2/18
Some experts are chiming in now. Theory is leaning toward gray whales, but still no clear identification....
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Yesterday morning when I was doing some aerial photography, I saw something on my tablet that I couldn’t recognize. It actually just looked like pixelation, but it was different. I walked out to the edge of our bank and looked back up the bay and couldn’t see anything. I was looking into the glare from the sun and there was a lot of flotsam in the water. I didn’t think much of it.
When I got back and downloaded the images I was shocked at what I found. This almost looks like it could have been a pod of transient Orcas chasing a seal/seals into shallow water….
Oh…. The woulda, shoulda, coulda’s that I have been feeling since finding this. If only I had it in video mode I could have captured the event….. The Orca theory is just speculation on my part. It seems like the only logical explanation. You can see the images of at least 3 of the large mammals in the water. It would take something the size of an Orca to make waves like this….
March 1st is the first day of Meteorological
Spring.Spring sure sounds nice, doesn’t
it?So today I am closing the books on
February.This “should” be the end of
the theoretical “Rain Season” for us.Traditionally for our area this is defined as the 4 month period from
November through February. Uhmmm…I think we can easily define this last 4
months as a RAIN season all in CAPS…..There are some pretty remarkable numbers…
After last night’s little deluge, we ended up with 20.22” of
rain in the last four months.That is
more rain than we had in the FULL YEAR (12 Months) of 2008 and 2013.My data only goes back 12 years, but there are
still some interesting numbers here.Below is a bar graph of the last 12 “Rain Seasons”.
As you can see, the last 3 Rain Seasons have been pretty hefty…On a
side note, the 2006/2007 was the period including the Hanukkah Eve storm.That period we had some record rains for November (9.78”) and December
(6.11”) ….
If we sort this and put it into a matrix, it really shows
the magnitude of this past four months and how the last few years have been pretty wet.
On a brighter note….
Let’s enjoy the first day of Meteorological Spring! This video taken this morning.... :)
