Cloudy with occasional light rain and wind slow to develop, but becoming breezy late in the day. Temperatures in the upper 40s.
This morning while I was on a call, I noticed a flock of finches land in the top of a tree across the road. I couldn’t see them very well through the window, but I think they were White-winged Crossbills. I asked Connor to go look, but he misunderstood where I was telling him to look, and by the time he figured it out, they had apparently moved on.
The forecast called for a high wind warning starting at 10am. Gusts of 60 mph were predicted. I thought it would likely be breezy, but didn’t expect to see such large gusts. Occasional very high wind forecasts do pan out, but often it seems that at least around town, the wind is less than the peaks predicted. I suspect it is difficult to get a highly accurate forecast due to the complex terrain, with wind impacts very different within even fairly short distances.
I did get out for a bit this afternoon. Once again, the water was most churned up on Crescent Bay. There was some wind in Silver Bay, but not even really white caps. I drove out as far as Sandy Beach the other way and didn’t see much wind. Connor said it was fairly calm out by Starrigavan when he was out there shortly before sunset.
The wind did start picking up around the house after sunset. Gusts at the airport were getting into the 40s each hour after being no higher than mid-30s through much of the afternoon.
This evening I caught up on watching the spooky science webinar recordings that had been put on by the Cooperative Extension folks in Anchorage. I found the one on bats particularly interesting. I was surprised to learn that little brown bats live 30-40 years. I would have guessed maybe 4-5 at most.