I'm Dreaming Of A...

...wet Christmas.

Screenshot from the Dark Sky app a while ago:

That streak of orange, pink, and blue is an "atmospheric river", known locally as The Pineapple Express. By noon local, we are likely to have set a new record for one day rain amounts.

Earlier, I tweeted thusly:

This may actually be relevant in western Washington today...#wawx @waEMD @NWSSeattle https://t.co/ce391F0Xr2

— Drang (@DWDrang) December 20, 2019

Now, flash floods are not often a threat in western Washington (although regular normal floods are all too common) , but the Washington State Emergency Management Department not only "liked" the tweet, but rated it accurate.

So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

(Edited to add this, which I had forgotten stealing pirating borrowing from... somewhere.)

Going and Coming

Sort of an NRAAM post, pics on the way there and on the way back...

All photographs © 2019 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

On climb out from SEA

It got a bit hazy once we made altitude, but this gives you an idea of the local terrain.
(Click to embiggenate.)
I was on the wrong side of the plane for shots of Mt. Rainier.
Too far south for Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, or Glacier Peak.

Somewhere over the Mississippi weather started to close in.
Last 45 minutes or so of the flight into IND was rough.

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 1

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 2

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 3

SEA has airplanes hanging from the ceilings, so naturally, IND displays race cars...

Obligatory local color/architecture shots:

The buildings in that part of town are all connected by a series of skywalks.
Most of them are not this fancy.

"The Really Big One", explained

At The Fair

One of our first dates (26 years ago!) was going to The Western Washington Fair. Later it was simply called "The Puyallup Fair", for where the Western Washington Fairgrounds are. (This is also where the Washington Arms Collectors have most of their gun shows.) Now it has changed its name again, claiming to be The Washington State Fair.

Whatever.

So, there you are, taking you 900 pound pumpkin to the fair,
thinking you've got it made,
and some guy shows up with an 1100 pound gourd.
And then some other guy shows up with one that weighs 1300 pounds...

The worlds biggest kohlrabi...

Which was spawning.

Hooray for hops!

Honorable tree-san.

Somebody gave the bacon beast a perm!

Hippie cow.
(Actually a Tibetan Yak.)

Horny cow.
("The Watusi Cow has such large horns as a cooling mechanism...
blood circulates through them and cools off...")

Once again ran into Daddy Bear at the Fair.

Did not have scones, which are a standard, at least here. Was supposed to meet a colleague from work, but a minor crisis led to our arriving late enough that she and her husband had already left, so  that beer will have to wait. (Then again, this year all the beer gardens, pubs, and the like are posted "No Minors", which sign on an establishment serving alcohol in this state also means "No licensed firearms.")

Didn't see any rodeo events, and missed the draft horses. 

Did stop and chat with the techs who sold us our orthotics, though, and Mrs. Drang had hers adjusted. Mine are OK. Picked up some honey, passed on the fudge as we still have some in the fridge from the spring.

Passed on taunting the democrats in their booth. Didn't see where the Libertarian Party was set up this year, not sure if I would have been able to resist the urge ask WTF they were thinking?!

Walked until our feet were killing us. Came home.

How special

Local man accused of supporting ISIS

Federal prosecutors say a Washington state Army deserter who made statements supporting fighters from the Islamic State group has been charged with illegally possessing firearms, including a machine gun.
Daniel Seth Franey, 33, has lived in Montesano for the last three years, working as a commercial fisherman out of Westport.
He appeared before a judge Monday afternoon, charged with six felony counts for illegally possessing automatic weapons and other firearms.
The investigation started after a few people went to police saying Franey talked about his support for ISIL and his desire to kill Americans.

Once again, many if not most of the evidence comes from "undercover Federal agents", posing the question "Which came first, the plot or the investigation?"

In this case at least, the court documents at the linked article indicate that "Witness 1" contacted the local sheriff's office, which is what launched this particular investigation.

Time to reconsider...

In the past I have said that about the only natural disaster we here in Washington State are not subject to is hurricanes.

Yeah.

In rare event, remnants of Pacific hurricane hit Alaska | The Seattle Times

Now, that was yesterday, and today we're getting rained on. A lot. Like, I saw a neighbor lining up animals two by two lot.

Maybe it's unrelated to Hurricane Oho.

But salmon swimming upstream across a road are usually seen on the coast, not here in the megalopolis.

Western Wash. braces for a stormy Saturday

Meantime, most of the forecasts posted online for the day still call for "occasional rain."

More on the Cascadia Fault

Route Fifty - A Pacific Northwest Megaquake Will Test Government Response in Ways Katrina Never Did

While this article covers a lot of familiar ground, it also has some interesting new data, and a somewhat unique perspective.

I linked The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest - The New Yorker when it was published; here is a follow-up: How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes - The New Yorker. This one explains the dangers in more scientific terms, without  getting so technical that you need a PhD in Geology to explain it.

Also, note this key quote:

“You’re not overdue for an earthquake until you’re three standard deviations beyond the mean”—which, in the case of the full-margin Cascadia earthquake, means eight hundred years from now. (In the case of the “smaller” Cascadia earthquake, the magnitude 8.0 to 8.6 that would affect only the southern part of the zone, we’re currently one standard deviation beyond the mean.) That doesn’t mean that the quake won’t happen tomorrow; it just means we are not “overdue” in any meaningful sense. The odds I cite in the story are correct: there is a thirty-per-cent chance of the M8.0–8.6 Cascadia earthquake and a ten-per-cent chance of the M8.7–9.2 earthquake in the next fifty years.

And here is an OpEd from a recent Seatle Times about those two articles above: When disasters strike, poor, minority communities face greatest risks | The Seattle Times

Author is a social justice warrior scientist who can't help but see natural disasters in terms of people. Which is good. To a point. When you start denying that there is any such thing as a natural disaster, because the natural elements (wind, water, plate tectonics. etc.)  "interact with social environments to produce social outcomes", I think you're missing the point about preparedness.

For example, she bemoans the advice to bolt your home to it's foundation, because poor people live in apartments or rent, or own a home but can barely afford to live in Seattle, let alone make seismic upgrades.

Anyway. Related: Three Years After Japan’s Tsunami - The New Yorker

Inboxing

Some things that have been gathering electronic dust in my inbox...

Source: Instapundit.
Story: Global eavesdroppers: In World War II, dozens of radio operators in Scituate dialed into enemy conversations worldwide - News - providencejournal.com - Providence, RI
In case you ever wondered how a US Army unit that never left the Continental United States could win a Presidential Unit Citation for the battle of the Atlantic, this related story gives a clue, although only part of one. (I thought I'd posted this one before, but I guess not...)

Source: Dunno.
Story: Why Science Fiction Pioneer Hugo Gernsback Matters 131 Years Later | Inverse
Could be more fact-heavy, and the author is pretty clearly in the CHORF camp of the Sad Puppies controversy (if you don't understand, congratulations!), but, while I'm not sure Hugo Gernsback invented Science Fiction As We Know It, he sure laid the groundwork.

Bit of a change-up in this article from The Atlantic: How JSOC Became a Manhunting Machine, From Panama to Iraq - The Atlantic

Speaking of which, Insty pulls a few related pieces fom the archives: Instapundit » Blog Archive » AS WE FIGHT THE WAR ON TERROR DOMESTICALLY AGAIN, A FEW RELEVANT PIECES FROM OVER A DECADE AGO…

Sometimes coming back is pretty much the point:  A ‘monumental’ rescue: Coast Guardsman swims a mile in choppy seas to save four fishermen, one at a time - The Washington Post

A further change of pace: How to reclaim your privacy in Windows 10, piece by piece | PCWorld (Beware auto-play!)

Speaking of the weather...

ARES/RACES Volunteers Face Fire Threat While Supporting Emergency Communication

UPDATED 2015-08-27 1620 UTC] The North-Central Washington town of Republic touts “air you can’t see” on its website. That’s not the case today. Wildfires in the US Northwest have not only hampered the air quality and visibility, but led to a Level 2 evacuation order in the Ferry County community of about 1000 residents. That could rise to Level 3. Amateur Radio volunteers in Ferry County have been on the front lines of the wildfire emergency there. In Republic, a combination of Ferry County Search and Rescue (SAR), Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and ARES/RACES volunteers have been supporting communication for a shelter housing some 4 dozen evacuees — with more to come, according to Ferry County ARES Emergency Coordinator and RACES Radio Officer Sam Jenkins, WA7EC.

Every fifth Saturday -- that is, every time a month has a fifth Saturday, which is about quarterly -- there is an emergency communications drill. ARES and RACES groups across Washington State will staff Emergency Operations Centers, Fire Stations, etc, and and the like, and follow some scenario or exercise design.

Tomorrow's drill (in which I will not be participating, thanks to some overtime) looks to be complicated by the fact that many of the Emergency Operations Centers and Fire Stations and Et Cetera are going to be busy dealing with forest fires.

With any luck, it will rain enough to end these fires.

In the meantime, 73, OM...

Dear Oregon

No. Just... No.

I was going to be quite a bit more colorful, but my mother occasionally reads this.

Dodged a Bullet, and training for interesting times

Amateur Radio club meeting today; this was the annual elections. Managed to not get elected to anything. (Nominations had to be solidified in March, and I successfully argued that I had no guarantee that I'd be able to attend meetings due to impending changes in work schedules...)

Also, the presentation was an informational briefing on the impending Cascadia Rising exercise, scheduled for next summer. The scenario is that a Magnitude 9 earthquake occurs along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Coast, epicenter off Oregon.

Part of the scenario is that pretty much the only means of communication will be radio.

Hope there are enough amateurs...

Document (.pdf) of the scenario is here: Cascadia Subduction Zone Catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami Functional Exercise 2016 (Document will download!)

Washington RACES page on Cascadia Rising 2016 - WAEmcomm. Has a link to the above document, as well as the presentation we saw this evening.

The exercise will include governmental agencies at all levels, local, county, state and federal, as well as non-governmental agencies; Oregon and British Columbia are also participating.

METEOROLOGICAL ARMAGEDDON!!!1!

Well, not quite, but it's not lookin' good.

Also, this is where I piss off just about everyone east of the Mississippi, if not the Rockies...

Because, while they're lookin' a lot like Fimbulwinter, here in Pugetopolis the temperatures have been in the upper 50s and lower 60s, and the sky is blue, the sun is shinin'.

Yesterday a colleague was staring glumly at  "snow cams" of local ski resorts, which looked more like August than February.

Pacific Northwest Snowpack Near Lowest Levels on Record - weather.com (Video may auto-load.)

So, here's the concern, quoted from Weather.com:

Though an atmosopheric river of moisture soaked the Northwest and Northern California for several days at the start of February, significant snow was confined to the highest elevations due to mild temperatures. Therefore, the stormy weather pattern provided little help to the overall snowpack.

The snowpack is measured by how much water it would contain if it was melted down. In the West, the amount of water in the snowpack is more important than the depth since it helps replenish rivers, lakes and reservoirs when the spring melt arrives. Obervation stations known by the acronym SNOTEL are used to monitor the snowpack.

Emphasis added.

In the Oregon Cascades, the snow water content of the snowpack was less than 20 percent of average as of Feb. 9.
...
In Washington, snow water content ranged from 18 percent of average in the state's southern Cascade Mountains to 56 percent of average in the far northern part of the Cascades on Feb. 9. The Paradise SNOTEL (elevation 5,130 feet) on the southern slopes of Mount Rainier had its third lowest snow water content for Feb. 1 in records dating to 1981.

In the worst shape was the Olympic Mountains of northwest Washington, where snow water content was just seven percent of average.

Now, I know everyone's vision of Washington is that it rains nonstop. Players of Trivial Pursuit may be aware that New York City actually gets more rainfall annually than Seattle; while it does rain frequently here, it usually drizzles.

What we count on for our water supply supply is snow in the mountains. No snow, no municipal water supply.

New England can keep the damned sportsball trophy, just give us back our snow.

Apparently, Brian was wrong

So, apparently there's about to be a big sportsball tournament. And, in order to show support for our team, we are supposed to boycott cheese. But, not only are my favorite cheeses not made in their state, they're made in this state or the one to the immediate south. But that doesn't count because these states are known for airplanes and software and coffee and running shoes and outdoor gear and knives, not cheese.


The pizza's gonna be kinda weird tomorrow, because the arbiters of sportsball fan loyalty have decreed that, in fact, the cheesemakers are not blessed.

"Voluntarily hand over your papers, bitte"

NHTSA's Voluntary Roadside Blood-And-Saliva Survey Heads To Seattle With A Much Greater Emphasis On 'Voluntary' | Techdirt

Although it's already been burned twice for its intrusive, not-mandatory-but-it-sure-looks-that-way "roadside surveys," the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) isn't letting a lot of bad press, a lawsuit and a Congressional investigation slow down its blood-and-saliva collections. After two straight debacles (Texas and Pennsylvania), the NHTSA is headed to Seattle in hopes of gauging the effects of newly-legal weed on the driving population.

I confess that part of me sees the point of seeing if Washingtonian hipsters are driving while baked, what with weed being legal here now, but still...

OTOH, in WA a "traffic checkpoint" is only legal if it stops every single vehicle passing through it. I can't see doing that to ask people to voluntarily submit to a breathalyser and a blood draw.

And I really doubt people will believe them when they say that no identifying information, including license plate numbers, will be collected.

By the way, a few years ago WA started requiring us to get new plates every 7 years, because older ones aren't readable by traffic cameras.

The Great Washington ShakeOut - 10/17/2013

The Great Washington ShakeOut - Get Ready!

Lots of resources at the link, even if you're not in the Evergreen State, let alone if your school or employer is not participating.

A tip:  The old advice to seek safety in a doorway has gone by the wayside; while the door frame MAY be strong enough to resist collapsing, the door itself is going to swing back and forth...

Instinct may be to get the hell outside!!!  Resist the urge: Running for the door -- which is likely to be unmanageable, see above -- will waste time that could be better used seeking cover inside.  Plus, your footing will be unsteady, to say the least.

They don't make 'em like that anymore...

They certainly don't name 'em like that, either.

Newspapers.

Reading a book titled Fighting For Paradise, by Kurt R. Nelson, which is a military history of the Pacific Northwest, I learn that the very first newspaper in the Pacific Northwest was the grandiloquently named Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumblebee Budget.

Which was written out longhand.  

As you might imagine, it only lasted a few weeks, a dozen or so editions of the tri-weekly, each of which only included a few dozen copies.

Ghu knows, if I had been doing it there would only have been one, and no one would have been able to read it...

Ssssshhhhhhh! -- CORRECTION

You can't hear it, but across the state of Washington thousands of gun owners are shooting their guns in the air with now legal-to-sue suppressors attached, to celebrate...

CORRECTION:  Actually, even though signed by The Queen, does not have weight of law until July.

Good thing I haven't heard of anyone celebrating early...

FLASH! ORYGUN HOUSE VOTES TO ALLOW OUT-OF-STATE CPLS!

Now it goes to the senate...

House says concealed carry licenses from other states OK in Oregon
Published: Monday, March 21, 2011, 5:19 PM
The Oregon House voted Monday to throw out the welcome mat for out-of-state visitors packing heat and concealed weapons permits.

On a vote of 40 to 17, the chamber approved a bill that would allow people who have permits from other states to carry concealed guns while visiting Oregon.

Two former law enforcement agents Democratic Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha, and Republican Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach  carried the bill, which now goes to the Senate for approval.

Currently, Oregon doesn't recognize licenses issued by any other state, though a license from this state is honored in just over a dozen others.

This is the second piece of legislation concerning concealed handguns to pass through the House in a week. A bill blocking the release of information about who carries concealed weapons passed on Thursday by slightly larger margins.

While the law is aimed at license holders from other states, it could also potentially open the door to reciprocity with some 37 states in all, said Krieger. Oregon handgun owners, concealed carry, are receiving a definite benefit, he said.

Only one representative spoke against the legislation, Mary Nolan, a Democrat from Portland. 

h/t NRA-ILA, via SNW.

On the road to...

Klamath Falls.

Not today, I don't think...

Apparently, a foot or so fell in the last 24 hours...

Not quite as cold as it seems...

You wouldn't think they'd need to be told.
They certainly won't need to be told more than once...

Who ordered this?!

Got home from work to discover that Mrs. Drang, prudently, had not let the Fur Persons out.

Ratbane was out and in the tree line before I knew it, Sparrowbane was a little more tentative about it. OTOH, Ratbane was also inside before I could steady the camera to get a pic of him, so I guess he's getting a little more reconciled to this whole domestic life thing. Sparrowbane, as you can see, was checking to see if snow is as cold and wet at the treeline as it is on the porch.  Then he sort of teleported inside...  (I know what it looks like.   No, he was not marking the tree, he was bracing himself for the mad dash to come...)

The Princess has not gone near a door since I got home.

The Seattle Times, which I rarely tire of teasing, has several potentially useful items on their site today:

• The Weather Beat | How to prevent frozen pipes | Seattle Times Newspaper
• The Weather Beat | How to get through a power outage | Seattle Times Newspaper
• which includes a link to a .pdf titled "If you don't have electricity."  Obviously, you should print this out in advance.  Or from the library, I suppose...
• Local News | Heading over the mountains? Take extra precautions  (Ordinarily, a trip from Seattle to Spokane is a two to three hour drive.  Except in winter...)

 The home page is here: The Seattle Times
Most, if not all, of the local municipalities have reduced services--schools, parks--due to the weather, but have also opened shelters.  If you can read this, check the city's web site.