It has been an amazing season. Because of the constant cool temperatures, the snowpack in the hills has not been melting (wonderful for skiing) and the blossoms on the trees in the Lower Mainland seem to last and last. This is all about to change. It is cloudy and cool as I write on Thursday morning, but we are promised sun later today and temperatures of 24º. And tomorrow, away from the water, the thermometer is expected to reach 30º.

Technorati Tags: Salish Sea

If I were to comment on my own blog, but I did not log on, or otherwise have an avatar, there would be no visual to identify me. In the past, WordPress would show a silhouette of a generic person. A new site feature is the creation of an image, called an identicon, that is unique because it is based on the IP address of the poster. The feature has been implemented on this blog, and you are seeing my identicon.

To complete my research on the subject, I dropped by the blog of the author of the identicon, Don Parks. Over there my identicon was simpler. I don’t know why.

Technorati Tags: WordPress, identicon

Tomorrow (May 5) at 5:18 PDT, there will be a new Moon. It means that the Moon is passing the Sun in the sky. It is daytime, so you will not see the Moon, but it is up there about 8 degrees above the sun, as indicated in the first image. Click the thumbnail to see the full image.

What makes this unusual is that only 3 hours later, the Moon is at its closest point in its orbit around the Earth. It will be only 357,771 km away. The combination of the new Moon (the Sun and the Moon in the same direction in the sky), plus the closeness of the Moon, means that we can expect some spectacular tides. Here are the charts for Point Atkinson. The first shows the pattern of tides from May 5 to May 8, and the second is just for May 5.

Technorati Tags: Moon, perigee, map, tide

Most accurate on April 21 at 9:30 PM.
Click thumbnail for full-size image
edited to add: if you cannot see the full-size image
please read the first comment at the end of this article

“Where are this month’s maps for finding Comet Holmes?” I was asked. It seems that people are still interested in this amazing comet. Well, as the maps above show, the part of the sky with the comet, which contains all of those constellations with bright stars that give the winter sky its chilly glitter, are drifting down into the evening sunset. So, as the twilight fades that part of the sky is already low in the west, and as darkness increases, those stars set. At each dusk, that part of the sky is lower down.

In the coming month there are two prominent planets visible: Mars is near Pollux in Gemini, and Saturn is just east of Regulus in Leo. The Lyrid meteor shower will happen on April 22 — but the full moon will make them hard to observe.

Those of us around the Salish Sea anticipate some dramatic high and low tides around May 6 at the time of the new moon, which this time coincides with the Moon at its perigee (closest point to the Earth in its orbit - 357,771 km away).

Technorati Tags: Comet Holmes, star map

For people interested in the quality of the snowpack, it continues to be an extraordinary year. Today the weather is gloomy with a 40% chance of precip. The temperature at Pam Rocks (middle of Howe Sound) is 7º, down from a high of 10º yesterday.

The big news is that tomorrow, Saturday, we should see some sun and the temperature could soar to 21º. So, tomorrow could be the first warm day of 2008 for this region.

It is only when the temperatures at sea level rise above about 8º that precipitation in the mountains becomes rain instead of snow. This year we have received lots of precip, and almost all of it fell on the upper parts of the mountains as snow. And there has been almost no melting.

The last long-lead seasonal outlooks from NOAA was published on March 20:

COLD EPISODE (LA NINA) CONDITIONS CONTINUE ACROSS THE TROPICAL PACIFIC, ALTHOUGH THE EPISODE HAS WEAKENED OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS. SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES (SSTS) ARE BELOW AVERAGE THROUGHOUT THE EQUATORIAL PACIFIC OCEAN BETWEEN 150E AND 110W. SSTS IN THE NINO 3.4 REGION (FROM 5N TO 5S AND 170W TO 120W) ARE A GOOD INDICATOR OF THE STRENGTH OF A LA NINA. THE WEEKLY NINO 3.4 INDEX VALUE PEAKED IN MID-FEBRUARY NEAR -2.0, AND HAS DECREASED TO NEAR -1.0 BY MID-MARCH. THIS DECREASE IN THE NINO 3.4 INDEX IS CONSISTENT WITH A WEAKENING OF LA NINA CONDITIONS. WEAKENING LA NINA CONDITIONS WERE ALSO OBSERVED AT THIS TIME OF YEAR DURING THE LAST STRONG LA NINA EPISODE IN BOTH 1999 AND 2000.

The prediction maps show nothing remarkable for this area, but certainly indicate considerable warming for the mid-southern USA and parts of Alaska. Last October this blog article noted that La Niña might produce a colder and wetter winter. I think it has.

Technorati Tags: La Niña

Easter monday, we headed up Hollyburn Ridge in Cypress Bowl.

I was amazed at the amount of snow that has fallen in the few days since I was last here. The top couple of inches was not exactly powder, it had the sandy quality of graupel. It is lovely to ski — as someone said, it is silky. We started down the east side of the ridge, heading into the Lake Capilano watershed.

Below the Water Boards we crossed over to the west side of the ridge and decided to make our own tracks through the old growth forest and down to the road.

At one point we found ourselves on the south side of a gully. The bench we were on vanished and there was no way forward, except down into the gully. Note how deep the snow is. We put our skins on and ascended for about 100 meters and continued to side-hill down. We emerged from the woods just above the point where the road to the nordic area meets the main Cypress Bowl highway.

Technorati Tags: Cypress Bowl, snow, Hollyburn, ski, old growth forest

I remember that my family in Quebec never cared for March. Probably we attended too many poignant funerals during that month. Here on BC’s southwest coast, folks seem to think that because it is now spring, that the weather is warming and the ski season is over. My neighbours are working in their gardens. Actually, it is not warmer. It just seems that way. The days are longer and the sun shines much more than it did in February. The truth is, we have had lots of precipitation this month, and I don’t think the temperature at sea level has yet to rise to double digits. In the hills the snow has not started to melt. As a backcountry skier, I am delighted that the mountain snowpack is still increasing.

The flowers are some of the forest canopy now growing on the forecourt of the Vancouver Art Gallery in the centre of the City. Last Tuesday, after several days of rain, the sky partly cleared, and I headed for the local hills. As the ferry departed Snug Cove, I could see the new snow up in the hills. The images are thumbnails.

An hour after I boarded the ferry, I was skiing up the hikers’ route on Hollyburn Ridge. My ski poles showed there was about 8 inches of fresh snow. A bit of a crust 2″ down easily supported the skis. I was on the top of the ridge in another hour and 20 minutes. The second picture shows a telemark skier about to make his second turn off the Summit of Hollyburn. Up there it was dark, overcast, and snowing vigorously. The cloud and the precip is a local event caused by the sea air flowing up the mountain.

The descent is always faster than climbing, so within a few moments I was out from under the dense cloud and could glimpse Vancouver and the Lions Gate Bridge. To find fresh snow I was making my own tracks through the glades. I was alone in this beautiful forest. Often the sun was shining.

The tour ends under a major power line just above the road. There are still dark clouds overhead, but a few moments after I started to drive down, I was in the sun. A beautiful spring day.

Technorati Tags: Hollyburn, snowpack, Snug Cove, Telemark

These pictures of the object, sent by David, really belong in the comments that follow the star maps for this month. I discovered that I cannot post pictures in the comment field, so they are here.

@David, thanks for the pictures. I was not at my desk for a day so I’ve been slow to post. The pictures here are thumbnails - click for the full images. I took the liberty of cropping the best to show the object, and the second is the same material enhanced in Photoshop to show as much detail as possible.

The pictures certainly match the eyewitness accounts. I am hoping that the local observers who have posted here can do a bit of geometry to figure out where, exactly or approximately, the observed object was relative to their positions.

Technorati Tags: UFO, comet, Boracay Island

There are several news stories over the past couple of days that indicate there is some political will to rename the Strait of Georgia. It would become The Salish Sea. It is a lovely idea, but it seems to suggest that the Salish Sea may not include Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

A couple of comments come to mind.

First, regardless of the name on British Columbia maps, it is The Salish Sea, and has been for a time that is longer than the current governments that claim the naming rights.

Second, it would probably be more meaningful if the federal governments of Canada and the United States, as well as the State of Washington and the Province of British Columbia and the Coast Salish people all agreed to officially naming the entire waterway The Salish Sea.

Technorati Tags: Salish Sea

Since I have a request for yet another set of star maps for finding Comet Holmes, here they are. Last night it was clear, and even with binoculars, I could not see it. The first map will work well for locating stars and planets in the evening sky for the next month or so. It is actually for 8 PM local time on April 1. The second map shows the path of Comet Holmes from March 4 to April 8. April 8 is the last day that Holmes will be in Perseus. On the 9th it crosses the border into Auriga. If you do observe it, please drop me a note. If you have not written to me before, please put the words “Comet Holmes” as part of your email subject. I’d be interested to know if you can take a picture of it.

Technorati Tags: Comet Holmes, Sky map, star map