The smoky umbrella that has covered much of the North Olympic Peninsula — indeed, the entire Northwest and now stretching to Minnesota — this week has turned to a more traditional cloud cover.
A Northwest-style drizzle smeared windshields in Port Angeles and other spots along the Peninsula.
Although committing to no more than a 40 percent chance, the National Weather Service today forecast showers accompanying a traditional cloud cover. Temperatures are going to be much cooler than the 70s and 80s of the past several days.
You might call it June gloom in July.
To prove it, the Weather Service reporting station at Quillayute Airport reported traces of precipitation — nothing measurable — early this morning.
A disturbance dipping down from the Gulf of Alaska will move into the region Saturday, bringing the chance of showers — mainly in the central and western parts of the coastal Peninsula. Port Townsend and the eastern side will have more clouds than anything wet, according to forecasters.
All this is reducing the smoke that’s been aloft from a spate of wildfires in British Columbia.
Haze from smoke drifting south from the wildfires as well as others in Canada’s midsection has lingered over parts of eastern Colorado, giving Denver the same type of red sun that’s been seen this week on the Peninsula and along Puget Sound.
Locally, most of the smoke is too high overhead to reduce air quality on the ground, air monitors have said.
Real-time air pollution readings can be accessed at the state Department of Ecology website, https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/enviwa.
Peninsula air quality readings can be found at http://www.orcaa.org/air/current-air-quality.
