Partly cloudy early, becoming mostly cloudy. Temperatures in the lower 50s.
It seems like the weather this fall has often been sunnier and dryer than I have expected based on the forecasts. Today called for 100% chance of rain, but the sun was shining this morning. I checked the weather radar and saw rain was falling well offshore, but did not seem to be moving towards town.
Though clouds built up over town, the rain never did move over (though later looks at the radar showed heavy rain was falling out over the ocean).
I walked a loop to Swan Lake and Castle Hill, then back home.
I was a little surprised to see folks downtown that looked like tourists. With the storm earlier in the week, ships had been canceled. I had gotten used to the idea that the season was over. When I looked in last night’s paper, I saw two ships with a combined capacity of over 4000 were due in port today. I was just seen the first folks off the early ship.
With few birds, and more people arriving, I didn’t stay long at Castle Hill.
This afternoon I processed more collections from Shoals Point. I worked out a tentative identification for one of the mosses. Then I got distracted by some small fungi I found on a leaf that was in a liverwort collection.
Overnight the snow levels dropped down below 3800 feet, as evidenced by the snow on higher peaks this morning. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly sunny, so I if the clouds break up before sunrise, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some frost at higher elevations (and maybe even down to sea level).
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
