Sorry for the missed post last night, such are the whims of Internet Service in a rural area.  We don’t have cable available to us, so have to use microwave technology to get local service.  Our local provider, Mountain Broadband, decided to change out equipment, and now we have no service.  When you live in the mountains, there are lots of things I am happy to do without, however, Internet service is not one of them.  Television, yes.  In fact, for the first three years, we lived in our Nederland house, we did without any kind of television service provider.  But my connection to civilization and my livelihood as a writer depends on the Internet.

Anyway, on to today’s post.  There’s been a lot of hazy and smoky skies along the Front Range this past week, which seems bizarre, given we are again getting copious amounts of rain, and temperatures have been cool.  This has been a very unusual summer in that we never really went through the hot and dry weather that is typical of June.  After five years of living in the mountains, I’ve learned the patterns of weather, especially as they relate to wildfire danger.  There are two months that worry me the most — June and September, because they tend to be the driest, hottest and windiest.  Usually in June, all the tall grasses along the foothills turn brown and become bone dry, making for perfect fire fuel.  But this year, it never happened.  We continued to get rain, and July has started off the same way — we have now received over three inches of rain this past week.  I’m loving seeing the hills so green, and the fire danger signs reading Low, and hope it stays that way.

Given all this wet weather, what’s with all the smoky, hazy skies and bad air quality?  Well, you can blame western Canada and Alaska for that.  I’ve noticed myself that I’ve been getting lots of headaches this week, and I can’t help but wonder if the bad air is to blame. Well, the same weather pattern that brought very cool temperatures earlier this week (our high was 50 degrees), brought the smoke southward from western Canada.  Turns out there are dozens of fires burning in Western Canada, and even Alaska, 28 of which are over 6000 acres each, meaning there is probably over 200,000 acres burning.  When the cold air sinks down from Canada, like it has, it brings all the smoke and haze with it, so much so that a smoke advisory was issued for Tuesday and Wednesday for most of the Front Range counties and cities.  It’s somewhat ironic as many tourists come here for the clean mountain air, and instead get smoke that irritates the lung.

While California has received a lot of media attention regarding its severe drought, what’s not as well known is how incredibly dry the Pacific Northwest and western Canada has been.  So until the weather pattern changes to bring significant precipitation to western Canada, or winds shift around to bring weather from our south, we’ll have to learn how to live with the haze obscuring our grand mountain views.  But as someone who resides in the mountains, I can’t help thinking that’s a better alternative to having fires here in Colorado.

 

drought map

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