January 19-25, 2025

With continuing clear skies, temperatures have remained low all week, dipping into the single digits or below zero every night this week and creating ice on the rivers.

Week in Review

I know it's been cold, but I've been out on multiple outings where I haven't seen a single animal and it has me wondering how many animals you're seeing on your outings?

Because bird flu has been an issue of growing concern, I've been paying close attention to trends in the numbers of birds and animals and wondering if we're seeing any impacts here. So far, I've heard very little about bird flu in Washington, and nothing about it in Okanogan County but we could be overlooking it.

Fortunately, a variety of birds are still being observed around the valley, including hawks and owls that are out eating small mammals, waterbirds that are foraging for food in open water, and scavenging birds eating any dead animal they can find.

The biggest surprise was finding a very nervous pied-billed grebe in the Methow River this week. These small grebes are almost exclusively found in ponds and small lakes, where they stay close to thickets of shoreline cattails and bulrushes, and they probably leave the valley when all the lakes freeze over (if not sooner). However, they are known to linger into winter on slow-moving rivers, but this bird didn't seem at all comfortable in the currents of the Methow River.

Observation of the Week: Mackerel Sky

Many people noticed an extraordinary sunset on the 22nd, the night before a brief storm system crossed over the Methow Valley. The popular name for this phenomenon is "mackerel sky," and it's commonly caused by altocumulus undulatus clouds.

These are clouds at moderate heights that may precede a storm system and suggest that precipitation is on its way. In at least some cases, the clouds result from wind shear as two air masses moving in different directions create pockets of rolling air, but I'm not sure if this is always the case (here's a goofy explanation from a TV weatherman, and a more general explanation).

If nothing else, rows of parallel clouds indicate places where air is undulating as it flows across the landscape. As the air swings upward, it cools and condenses, then sinks because it's cold which prompts the cloud to evaporate as the air warms and rises again, repeating the pattern over and over.

These cloud patterns are always exceptional...but never more so than when they're painted by the colors of a flashy sunset!