La Ninas typically feature cool and wet springs, and the 2021-2022 La Nina has had that in spades. According to Chief Fox12 Meteorologist Mark Nelsen, Portland just experienced its wettest April on record, the coolest April since 2011, and, as denizens of the Portland metropolitan area know all too well, had a very rare April […]
Drought Relief For The Inland NW This Week
Last Wednesday, the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), a government agency that oversees water resource management in the Western US and Great Plains, announced that they would close the main irrigational canal that draws from Upper Klamath Lake for the 2021 irrigation season. This canal, known as the “A” canal in the USBR-sponsored Klamath […]
The “Anti-Blob:” Cool, Nutrient Rich Waters Off the West Coast
Remember the “Blob?” That awful patch of sterile, warm water from late 2013-2015 and again in summer 2019? Well, now we have the opposite of the “Blob;” a swath of cooler-than-average water along the West Coast extending all the way to Hawaii. What do you think we should call it? In the past I’ve called […]
El Nino Is Dead
FINALLY! After being in El Nino conditions off-and-on since autumn 2014, we are finally solidly back into the “neutral” area, and it is looking increasingly likely that we will be in a La Nina regime for the latter half of 2016 into 2017. With the exception of Nino 4, all Nino regions have near-average […]
Our Beloved Salmon
Tuesday, September 15, 2015 2:27 pm Things were never looking good for our beloved salmon this year. I’ve been a fisherman all my life (I actually just got back from catching a bunch of albacore tuna off the Washington Coast), so I care quite a bit about how our salmon are doing. First and foremost, […]