Last summer I took the photo above to highlight the interesting phenomenon that we call the marine layer... basically fog that makes its way inward when the sea breeze is strong enough and the fog is deep enough. Note how well you can see the hills only a few miles from our house and the blue skies.
Now, check out the pic below, taken today. Note that the hills have disappeared. The whole Bay area is engulfed with smoke from various wild fires burning to the north, east and south of us. Most of them were started by dry thunderstorms about a week ago.
Because there are fires in every direction but west, almost no matter which direction the wind blows (except from the west) we're gonna have smoke until the fires are gone. The weather guys are saying that next week the sea breeze should come back, cooling things off a bit and blowing the smoke away... at least until the winds shift again. That will definitely be nice for us, but it also means folks east of us may get even smokier.
Click here for a map of where the fires are burning.
Click here for satellite photos.
On a related topic, I read today that for the first time in recorded human history the arctic ice may melt enough this summer to allow ship traffic through what the explorers always hoped to find... the Northwest Passage.
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