Left hanging dry

 

A map of today's jet stream

Since mid-September, I have been rather unsettled by the quality of the daylight, particularly at dawn and dusk. 

It took me some time to figure how what the problem was.  Slowly, I realized that the light really isn't odd for the time of year.  The temperature has been.

The heat hasn't been oppressive in Victoria, but it's been warm, like a temperate summer day.  

Summer.  Not autumn.

It's been warm enough that local berries have been available for more than two months later than we would normally have them.  They were late, of course.  My journals are full of comments about how cold it was in May and June.

When I walk out in the evenings, I'm startled by how soon the sun sets.  It's setting at the normal time for just past the equinox, but my skin expects the light to linger into mid-evening.  The quality of the light seems unfamiliar, because it's not accompanied by rain.  Just as I couldn't put my fleece tops away in June, I cannot yet part with my summer cottons and linens.

I gather the problem is the jet stream.  For weeks and weeks, it has been hanging in a high loop at the top of the province of British Columbia.  When we're south of the jet stream, things get warm.

Now, according to the map, which I found at netweather.tv - it's pretty nifty; it's interactive - the dangling loop of jet stream will drop below us in about ten days, at which point, things will get recognizably autumnal.  

It may be too late for the salmon, though.

Evening, and I look to the south, as I walk our neighbourhood.  The sky is a light yellow colour above the purple peaks of the Olympic Mountains across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  It's a colour I associate with winter, but without the damp and cold.  I shiver, anyway.