Revised and extended (as they say on Capitol Hill).
I hope some readers in San Diego and nearby counties can report what the smoke is like in their areas today.
It is really bad here today. A blue-grey haze. Much worse than yesterday, when we actually had high clouds and some light rain showers, after which it actually got clear. It is not clear (so to speak) to me whether this is just localized in the canyons areas, of all over.
Compare the above photo with the one from 23 October. Bad as it has been today, it could be worse!
Friday night it was clear enough that the (just past full) moon actually was a pure white again. Last night too. Earlier in the week, it had been a rather unpleasant orangish color due to all the smoke in the sky.
I don’t have any moonshots to post (surprising, I know), but here is what the sun looked like on 24 October.
And the next photo shows the sky yesterday afternoon. There were lots of clouds and even some light rain. It is amazing that any rain could fall given how dry the atmosphere has been. We still have had ground-level humidity barely go above 50% at any point in the past week except early Saturday morning, when it was briefly in the 80s.
Even when the light rain was falling, the humidity was quite low (30% range). We were out in the afternoon and passed through Escondido during a surprisingly good (but brief) rain shower. Even under the cloud cover, we could see a thick column of smoke still rising from a fire in the distant northeast, near Palomar Mountain. (No camera handy then, unfortunately; it was quite an impressive sight.)
The photo above also gives some idea of the ash fall here at the finca. The grime and dirt you see on the sidewalk here is actually mostly ash.
Today it is hot again. 92 at last check,with 17% humidity. But winds have been light and mostly from the southwest.
Update: After about 1:00 p.m. it has become a good deal clearer here.
The air quality here in Rancho Bernardo has been slightly variable but has mostly tended to be on the very hazy and acrid side.
Seed planted by Kevin Watt — 28 October 2007 @ 17:26
Someone in the Irvine area e-mailed me to tell me the air was worse there today than yesterday.
Another e-mailed me the following:
It is better here now in Bonsall (at 2:45 p.m.) than it was earlier. Not good; it is all relative.
Seed planted by MSS — 28 October 2007 @ 18:46
We could see blue sky today in Carlsbad. The air quality has improved since Saturday’s rain. People were outdoors running and walking their dogs again this afternoon.
Seed planted by Catherine — 29 October 2007 @ 01:03
In El Cajon, we like to open our windows at night. We had them open Wed & Thu nights (26th & 27th), but had to close them on Fri, Sat, & Sun because of the smoke. When we were getting east winds during the fires, our air was clear as there were no fires to the east of us. Now that the winds are light (at best), the smoke is heavy. We think the smoke is from the Harris fire.
Seed planted by Doug Young — 29 October 2007 @ 15:35