something changed

This region has been in rainfall deficit since late winter.  Spring rains were minimal, summer as dry as usual.  Portland reset its #days with temperatures above 90°!  Given all this it's quite the surprise to see the weather do what it always does, which is break from one pattern to another.  Cool and wet will prevail for the next week or so, and decent widespread rain will quench wildfires and restore greenery to the brown lands.

Often this can happen as other areas of the Pacific fill with late-summer typhoons and Hawaiian hurricanes; these inject plenty of energy and moisture which inevitably gets carried to the west coast of US/Canada.  Here comes the first of them.

We live near the boundary of the Willapa Hills and Lower Columbia forecast zones.  One has a High Wind Warning, the other a Wind Advisory.  Boundaries do that, and we must have boundaries!  It doesn't really matter though, as our home is strongly sheltered from the south wind - we will hear it and its effects, but feeling those winds is unlikely except as they swirl around the highest areas to reach us.

I planted several of our potted plants yesterday, feeling like one warm day followed by an inch or more of rain might settle them in nicely.  Our wood wall now has a sunflower, bush and rock roses as well as our potted daphne are now in place.  The exceptionally dry ground did not wish to yield but I put them in place and gave them an advance sprinkle  Hopefully they will enjoy the rain on their leaves as well as their roots.

UPDATE - here's how well the south wind is blocked here.  The hilltop behind us shows the firs waving in the strong breeze, but we recorded no south winds at all!  Unless one of those trees is uprooted and hurled about 30 feet horizontally, we just won't know about wind storms from the south..