Bellamy Pailthorp

After a string of warm and sunny days, residents of Western Washington were bracing for the effects of an upper level disturbance coming up from California. The weekend forecast calls for significant rain and possible thunderstorms, with temperatures dropping into the mid-60s.

The slowdown of daily life under stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus has many of us feeling more connected to nature. We hear more birdsong in the mornings. The air seems cleaner. Perhaps we’re seeing more wildlife in the parks as we take walks in our neighborhoods. But the change of pace hasn’t necessarily benefitted urban wildlife.

Local utility districts have been warning for some time of issues with so-called "flushable" wet wipes. Despite what the labels on many packages say, they are much too durable to be flushed. If sent down the loo, they damage pipes, pumps and entire sewer systems.

Hitting the hiking trail and spending a night at the theater are two pastimes many people in the Pacific Northwest enjoy. But they don’t often do so simultaneously.

A new festival of short plays, called “Finding Trails,” aims to bring these disparate worlds together.

“An improving trend” is in store this Memorial Day weekend. The clouds, rain and cool temperatures we’ve been experiencing over the past several days will yield to something a little less cloudy. You can expect dry conditions in most places and it will warm up considerably, to as high as 70 degrees on Monday, says KNKX Weather expert Cliff Mass.

But it will still be pretty cloudy.

Salmon need cold water to survive. Dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers are making the water too hot, in some places by as much as 5 degrees.

Now, after a drawn-out lawsuit and direction from the state of Washington, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has released plan to change that.  

The Makah Tribe was the first community in the state to shut down and has isolated its small population since March 16.

Its geography, with only one road in and out of the community near Neah Bay, has allowed it to keep close tabs on travel to and from the reservation, which is located at the far northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. Officers at a checkpoint keep tabs on all travel; non-residents are not allowed in.

The strategy has worked so far. The tribe has no reported cases of COVID-19. And the Makah tribal council just extended the order until June 30. 

After a heat wave that left many of us dreaming of summer, more typical spring weather is back in the greater Puget Sound region. That means a chance of rain pretty much every day and temperatures in the 60s, along with clouds and sun breaks.  

It also means the summer outlook for water supplies, stream flows and wildfires are looking normal to favorable, despite a scary dry spell in April.

As the Stillaguamish Tribe reopens its Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington on Wednesday afternoon, it becomes the first Western Washington tribe to do so since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Twenty-two tribes operate 29 casinos on their lands throughout the state.

As sovereign nations, tribes are not subject to the stay-at-home orders from Gov. Jay Inslee. They also depend on income from gaming to directly fund many essential government services.

Temperatures around the Puget Sound region were shooting up Friday into the mid-to-upper 70s, after an already warm week. And the forecast for Mother’s Day weekend promises temperatures in the low 80s. It almost feels like summer.

But KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass says this kind of heat wave in mid- to late May is not that unusual for the region.

Most state public lands will reopen Tuesday as Gov. Jay Inslee’s order to ease restrictions on outdoor recreation takes effect. But not Washington’s coastal beaches.

As May begins, the weather continues to offer that typical grab bag of conditions that is typical for spring in the Northwest: plenty of clouds, along with showers, sunbreaks, even possible thunderstorms. And often, forecasts predict the probability of these phenomena: a 10 percent chance of rain, say — or 50 percent chance.

That sounds plausible, but it turns out most people don’t know what that actually means.

Seattle City Light has started the process of relicensing three large dams in the North Cascades that supply the utility with about a third of its power.  

The utility will go through a detailed federal process over the next five years, to meet regulations to keep operating the 100-year-old Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. The current license was enacted in 1995 and expires on April 30, 2025.

Gov. Jay Inslee has turned his proverbial dial another notch toward normal. The governor announced Monday afternoon that some recreation may resume across Washington state, including hunting, fishing and golfing. 

“Reconnecting people to nature is the first step in the journey back to normalcy,” said Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz. She joined the governor and other state leaders for Monday’s announcement, the latest development in the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time that the City of Seattle has been keeping some parks closed because of concerns about COVID-19, it has opened up certain neighborhood streets for pedestrians, cyclists and skaters to get out more and move.

After a pretty long dry spell, April showers have returned to the Puget Sound region. We’ve entered a typical phase of showers and sun breaks, with lots of instability in the atmosphere that produces dramatic clouds with light blazing through them. 

Washington’s broadest coalition of climate activists is using the 50th anniversary of Earth Day to call for a just recovery from COVID-19.

The impact of the new coronavirus on the global economy has caused prices for fossil fuels to plummet. As everything has slowed down, demand has shrunk to just a fraction of what it was before governments told people to stay home to slow the spread of disease.

You may have heard of the “Seattle Freeze.” It’s a tendency some people say longtime locals have to be cold toward newcomers. And many say the social-distancing measures now necessary because of the coronavirus are making it worse. Out in public, people seem scared to make eye contact with strangers.

A pair of women in one of the city’s neighborhoods recently put on an event designed to warm things up a bit — despite the need to stay at least 6 feet apart from people you don’t live with.

“Extinction is not an option.”

That’s the headline on a statement released Thursday by the Quinault Indian Nation, as the tribe formally announced its opposition to a proposed dam on the upper Chehalis River. 

Maybe you felt a spark as you walked over carpeting and touched a doorknob. Or perhaps you noted how arid the soil was when you went out to do some gardening. These are signs of low relative humidity in the air. And Western Washington has experienced extreme levels of it — on several days this past month.

KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass says it’s been so dry, he coined a new term for it: "dry storm."

The stay-at-home order means most of us are safe indoors, where we’re generating a lot more trash and recycling. This increase in residential waste is something Tiffany "TJ" Burger has experienced up close. She drives a recycling truck for Waste Management in Seattle.

It’s been warm and sunny lately with clear blue skies and great visibility in the Pacific Northwest — ideal for seeing for events like the supermoon Tuesday night. 

Contrast that with Southern California, where a pattern of rain and snow in the mountains has locked in, providing much-needed water for reservoirs, but dampening spirits for some who live there.

This contrast is due to a configuration in the atmosphere called a blocking effect, says KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass. 

An estimated 1.6 million people are expected to turn to Washington's food banks by the end of this week, to keep from going hungry. That’s about twice as many as normal. Federal aid to address that new need is not expected to be available until July.

So, the state is asking for help raising about $13 million dollars — to keep the shelves stocked and people from going hungry, despite the challenges created by the new coronavirus.

Farmworkers are considered an essential part of the food supply system, so they have to stay on the job, even under Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order.

But many of the people who work the fields or ranches here lack sufficient protection to keep them safe from the coronavirus. Human rights advocates say that needs to change immediately.

After weeks of waiting for a response from the federal government, the Seattle Indian Health Board says it finally received a shipment of personal protective equipment — from a small business.

Like most companies these days, Eighth Generation has had to cut back and cancel many orders because of the coronavirus. But that didn’t stop the retail company from messaging Esther Lucero two weeks ago. The founder and CEO, Louie Gong, told her he wanted to leverage his contacts with manufacturers overseas to help get the agency critical supplies of personal protective gear.