The changeover of guardians scheduled for today was postponed due to strong winds blowing waves into the jetty.
Weather: Wind N 15 knots becoming NE reaching up to 50 knots by afternoon. Clear sky, temperature falling to near 0 deg C.
Category Archives: weather notes
Strong wind, lightning
Weather: A strong West wind over 50 knots picked up in the morning before dawn. There was also 2 lightning strikes in close proximity to the island that shook the house. The wind continued upwards of 40 knots throughout the day. The weather caused some damage to the exterior of the main house and broke off a few more shingles from the old roofs.
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- Tanker in 50 knots
Maintenance:
- Picked up wind blown off pieces of vinyl fascia and soffit from NW corner of main house
- continued work on assist house drainage problem
West Wind
Weather: Wind shifted to westerly, 30-35 knots in the morning.
Maintenance:
- reset overloaded UPS in assist house
- Requested replacement rollers for boat dolly, oil for HP pump, and a shovel.
- Worked on perimeter drainage problem/flooding in workshop at the assist house, unsuccessful clearing drain.
Wind and snow
Weather:
- A 30-35 knot N wind picked over night along with snow fall.Vertical North facing surfaces got some snow cover, everywhere else it blew off.
- Visibility was less than a mile in the morning with fog horn sounding.
- Seawater temp down to 8.5 C.
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- snow build up on North facing window of lantern room
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- water tank shed
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- north facing window, main house
Maintenance:
- cleared snow off lantern room window
- communications with Kyle and technician re desalinator problems
- communications with Kyle re diesel fuel level and delivery this week
- request for wood stove gasket cement.
- worked on cleaning and organizing in basement and consolidating obsolete items for removal
Other
- DFO noted higher than normal seawater temps in Nov data set, requested that we take analog observations for the next five days to compare with digital measurements.
snow
Weather:
- it snowed overnight but mostly blew away, some blown snow visible on tower and ground in the morning.
- temperatures climbed back up above freezing, wind decreased to 20 knots N.
- Maintenance: troubleshooting oil level in desal pump.
NE wind and tankers
Weather:
- wind NE 25-30 knots, 3 ft chop
- temperature remaining near or below freezing
Ecological: several tankers passed by the reserve today, a couple are photographed below. As shown in the screen shot from MarineTraffic.com there were 5 tankers (red) across the straight, in Port Angeles, in the morning.
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- Chembulk New Orleans, Oil/Chemical Tanker
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- Chembulk New Orleans
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- Polar Discovery, Oil Products Tanker, destination Port Angeles
Maintenance: continue to monitor water lines, running some heat tape overnight
Other: transcribed and sent off seawater data for the month of November
Freezing
Weather:
- 25-30 knot NE wind, clear sky.
- temperature fell below freezing overnight, ground frozen in the morning.
Boats: 3 ecotour vessels in the afternoon, they all appeared to get within the DFO’s 100 m marine mammal setback guideline.
Maintenance:
- checked on water lines and hooked up extension cables to heat tape on the fresh water tank and the main house fresh water inlet. Dumped water from rain tank to avoid freezing valve. Drained cistern pump in derrick shed.
- measured generator diesel levels, filled day tank.
- started generator in the morning, ran for 3 hours before overspeed fault. Ran again in the evening without overspeed.
- chopped wood, cleared out firewood cutting jig
Freeze up coming
A group of visitors from the college was planned to arrive around noon but the trip was canceled due to poor weather conditions.
Weather:
- Fog horn started up at 1 am, light fog, didn’t last very long.
- Wind NE 15-25 knots most most of the day.
- The forecast is calling for temperatures to fall below freezing in the coming days.
- Fresh snow visible along the coast in Metchosin
Maintenance:
- Checked on exposed water lines, started up assistant house furnace to keep above freezing.
- Did some clean up of blown off roof shingles, broken gutters, pipe, etc.
- Ran derrick engine
- Cleared boat ramp
- Generator automatically shut down due to overspeed fault.
- Requested new log peavey to replace old broken one.
Boats:
- Photos below of The Argent Daisy, a chemical tanker, passing by Race Rocks.
November seawater data
| YSI | YSI | ||
| Temp | Sal | ||
| Day | Time | ºC | ppt |
| 1 | 13:50 | 31.7 | 10.4 |
| 2 | 13:50 | 31.8 | 10.3 |
| 3 | 13:50 | 31.7 | 10.4 |
| 4 | 13:50 | 31.6 | 10.3 |
| 5 | 12:08 | 31.3 | 10.6 |
| 6 | 10:10 | 31.6 | 10.6 |
| 7 | 10:03 | 31.3 | 11 |
| 8 | 10:00 | 31.5 | 10.7 |
| 9 | 10:03 | 31.4 | 10.7 |
| 10 | 10:25 | 31.3 | 10.9 |
| 11 | 10:45 | 31.5 | 10.7 |
| 12 | 11:15 | 31.4 | 10.7 |
| 13 | 11:48 | 31.5 | 10.5 |
| 14 | 12:06 | 31.5 | 10.7 |
| 15 | 16:00 | 31.4 | 10.3 |
| 16 | 15:00 | 31.2 | 10.2 |
| 17 | 13:00 | 31.2 | 10.2 |
| 18 | x | x | x |
| 19 | 14:00 | 31.2 | 10.2 |
| 20 | 13:00 | 31.4 | 10.2 |
| 21 | x | x | x |
| 22 | 12:00 | 31.6 | 10.2 |
| 23 | 11:00 | 31.4 | 10.3 |
| 24 | 12:00 | 31.3 | 10.4 |
| 25 | 13:00 | 31.6 | 10.2 |
| 26 | 12:00 | 31.4 | 10.3 |
| 27 | 12:00 | 31.5 | 10.1 |
| 28 | 13:00 | 31.4 | 10.1 |
| 29 | 14:00 | 31.5 | 10.3 |
| 30 | 12:00 | 31.4 | 10.2 |
Gale Force Winds and Peregrine Falcon
Weather
- Visibility: 10 miles
- Wind: 0-5 knots NW in the morning
- By 11:10 up to 25 knots West
- By 11:25 33 knots, 11:55 40 knots West
- Post 12:00 steady at 30-35 knots West
- Late afternoon into darkness 15-20 knots West
- Sky: mix of sun and cloud
- Water: 2′ chop
Ecological
- 4 elephant seals on Great Race.
- They were very playful today.
- Pam Birley spotted a Peregrine falcon with the webcam!
- She took these 4 photos for us!
Maintenance
- Back flushed the desalinator.
- Ran the desalinator.
- Uploaded June Seawater data to the website.
Boats
- Did not see any boats in the reserve.