High Wind Warning Admiralty Inlet / Wind Advisory Northern Hood Canal

The NWS just updated the forecast. There is now a High Wind Warning for the Admiralty Inlet Area and a Wind Advisory for Northern Hood Canal. Now it looks like we will be having winds in excess of 40mph tonight. The fun begins between 8 and 10:00 tonight.... I am going to change the oil in my generator today and make sure it is ready to go.....

Here are the specifics from NWS:

High Wind Warning for the Northern Interior Areas (San Juan, W Whatcom & W Skagit Counties, & Admiralty Inlet Area from 8pm this evening to Noon Sunday. SE winds 20-40mph; gusts near 60mph. Tree damage & power outages possible.

Wind Advisories for Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca, Everett & Vicinity Area (Western Snohomish County), & Northern Hood Canal Area from 10 PM this evening to Noon Sunday. SE winds 15-30mph; gusts near 50mph. Downed tree limbs & local power outages possible!

Possible Wind Saturday Night

Looks like we have some weather coming our way Saturday night into Sunday morning. The NWS has issued a "High Wind Watch" for Admiralty Inlet. Technically, we are not in that zone, but we have front row seats.... At this point, it does not look like a major wind event for us, but just enough where we may want to have fresh gas in the generators.... Here is the text from the NWS:

...HIGH WIND WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY EVENING THROUGH SUNDAY

MORNING...

The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a High Wind Watch, which is in effect from Saturday evening through Sunday morning.

* WIND...Southeast wind 20 to 40 mph with gusts as high as 60 mph are possible.

* SOME AFFECTED LOCATIONS...Whidbey Island, Camano Island, Port Townsend, the San Juan Islands, Anacortes, Mount Vernon, Bellingham, Cherry Point, and Ferndale.

* TIMING...Winds will increase on Saturday evening then peak early Sunday morning. Winds will start to ease soon after sunrise on Sunday.

* IMPACTS...Tree damage and some power outages are possible. Be careful for the hazard of falling trees, especially if driving during nighttime hours on Saturday night and early Sunday morning.

 

 

In case you missed the sunset last night (1/18)....  Here is what came out of nowhere and lasted about 2 minutes....

 

 

2 Lightning Strikes

Last night we had 2 remarkable lightning strikes.  The first seemed to go on forever rumbling through the clouds and then it culminated with an apocalyptic explosion that felt like it hit the house....  A couple of minutes later there was another, more subdued strike.  Cam 3 picked up both.

This was the big one.  You can tell how close it was because the image is completely overexposed...  Way too close for comfort...

The second one was at a much safer distance over by Useless Bay....

I have added a new link on my site that is a lightning map.  It is located just below the CAPE forecast.

Meteor Image On Night Of Wolf Super Moon

On the night of the Wolf Super Moon, my night cam caught a very nice meteor.  Very rare to even be able to see a meteor with this much "light pollution".  It turned out to be a nice image with Mt. Baker illuminated by the moon...

 

Super Moon Tonight....

This month we will have two Super Moons.  One on January 1 and the second on January 31.  We got a little preview of it last night.  It will start to rise at 4:34pm and be visible on Cam 3.

Geminid Meteor Shower

Update:
Last night my cam picked up 8 meteors.  Considering that we were completely clouded over from about 9:00pm to 1:00am, that is pretty remarkable.  Most were small to very small.  Hopefully tonight (the peak) it will be clear all night....
 

The Geminid meteor shower is going to peak on the evening of December 13/14.  It got started a little early...  Around 6:00pm tonight my night cam picked up a couple of meteors.  30 minutes later it captured one very small one as well.  All with the same trajectory.  Here are a couple of images.  The first is a partial caused by the shutter opening as the meteor was traveling downward.  The second is a nice fireball....

The link below is a nice, simple article about the Geminid meteor shower.  It states that it's best to look south, but north seemed to work tonight... so far....  Unfortunately the clouds are moving in as I type....

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/meteor-shower/geminids.html 

Super Moon Rising Time Lapse

This has been an incredible Super Moon event.  Last night made for a great time lapse....