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In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Learn more about the project and see all the 365 Nature posts.


Everyone in the Pacific Northwest is sitting and waiting for today’s big windstorm to hit. We’ve recovered from the storm yesterday, leaves are covering our front yard now and the I’ve vacuumed the water leaking into the basement many times over the last two days. If I didn’t know better, I would think the worst of the storm is over. Outside it’s not raining and there is only the slightest breeze. The skies are even getting brighter, a dramatic change from the dark clouds over the last two days. From reports we know the storm is approaching and beating up the coast already. We’re expecting the storm to arrive in the next couple of hours with winds peaking tonight. Seattle appears to have escaped the worst of it. Lucky for us, less lucky for our neighbors to the north where winds are expected to ravage the islands and Bellingham.

I stopped by Alki Beach on my way home from an appointment in West Seattle this afternoon. The water was still calm and the huge container ships were anchored off shore, waiting to ride out the storm. The water level was very high, nearly up to the wall and the beach almost entirely disappeared under the water.

Right as I finish this post, the wind is starting to pick up. Here we go.

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Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner is a naturalist, writer and artist based in Seattle. She is the author of THE NATURALIST AT HOME: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us and NATURE OBSCURA: A City’s Hidden Natural World from Mountaineers Books, a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and Pacific Northwest Book Awards. She writes articles about natural history and has bylines in Crosscut, Popular Science, National Wildlife Magazine and others. On the side she writes fiction.

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