Heavy overcast with rain throughout the day. Temperatures in the 40s and moderate to gusty winds.
The forecast called for winds gusting to 50mph this morning. I don’t think anything quite so strong hit town. Reviewing the weather reporting for the day, it appears the peak gust at the airport was 41mph between 5am and 6am. Sustained winds never went over 25 out of the east.
I have the sense that I came at least partially out of sleep this morning and heard a big gust of wind at the house. It could easily have been during the time of the peak gusts at the airport.
By the time I was fully awake later in the morning, I could see branches moving, but it did not strike me as especially windy.
Even so, I was curious if winds might be stronger out over the water, so I headed out for a drive.
Waves were present in Crescent Bay, but I don’t recall seeing many whitecaps. Elsewhere, seas were even less disturbed.
Swan Lake had opened up more, but still had ice on a majority of it.
I did not see the Hooded Mergansers this morning, but did spot them when I drove by later in the day.
It occurred to me that I have not seen the Wood Ducks recently, nor have I seen any reports coming in to ebird. It may be they’ve moved on, but I’ll keep an eye out. [Update: pictures of the pair were posted on the Sitka Birds Facebook group after they were seen the next day at Swan Lake, so they were still around.]
The usual suspects were at the channel. I also saw Red-breasted Mergansers in with Common Mergansers. I’ve not seen them in the channel recently, but have seen them elsewhere not too far away.
Gulls have started to show up, and I noticed a few in the channel today. I heard recently that longline season doesn’t open until March 20th. By then herring may be starting to spawn. Without the processors operating to process blackcod and halibut, the gulls probably won’t tend to gather as much around town.
I wouldn’t have gone out again today, but this afternoon was a walk and talk. Given the steady rain, I didn’t carry much with me. My time to the viewpoint was just under 21 minutes. Basically the same as last week’s faster outing.
The rain also discouraged me from looking too closely at things. Lenses of various sorts get wet and/or fogged, making it hard to see. I did note the little streamlets along the trail were flowing higher than I’ve seen in some time.
Indian River was also flowing noticeably higher than it had been when I was out this morning. The stream gauge indicated it rose more than a foot between morning hours and later this afternoon.
As I write this late in the evening, it looks like we’ll end the day with close to an inch of precipitation for the day. It’s not a big rain day by Sitka standards, but considering there had been only 1.3″ of precipitation this month before today (over 4 inches below normal), it will represent a big change for the monthly total.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
