winter?

 

We are at 50% of normal already for February. 

We're in a dry spell for now, but change is coming. 

Sorta looks like winter - at last!

This is the forecast for next week at the valley floor. Whether we will be warmer or cooler, or if snow will drop to 800 feet, only time will tell at this point. 

January '26 = dry

We got off to a wet start, but since the 12th we've had just 0.02" - and that had to be fog condensation as we had no storms. We did finally reach freezing though! December's low was 31.1° which barely qualifies as freezing, but 27.6 this month is decently chilly.

We're at 2/3 of average precipitation for the month, and that's about where we shall end; the storm for this weekend has fizzled out and we might see another after the 28th. That breaks the string of above average months at three, but those three are the wet ones so we're in decent shape. As to snowpack, it's pretty  bad - the volcanoes are purely white, but roads through the mountains are frosty not snow-packed.

Update! The last storm of the month brought January to ~80 percent of normal. Better than expected, but it was another warm storm that did nothing good to snowpack.

We'll see what February will bring!

Solar smash relents

 

The timing this week's solar storm was good and bad. Skies were clear, but conditions were slick and frosty for our sloped viewing area. Worse was the time zone: europe and the eastern us hit peak time for two nights, but the west us was declining both nights. One could stay up and be rewarded, but the cold was most unappealing.

This 4-second shot at iso2000 is far fainter than last year's events. The timing was vital; clearly many folks got very bright flareups but the chill did not bring me patience!

Happy New Gear: 2026 edition

The Lumix-S era is over. For now.

As I noted before, if S didn't work out I would just revert to the µ43 kit and enhance it.  Well, as is often the case, I was half right. 

I gave it my best shot, but it couldn't be comfortably managed on my tiny budget. I'm getting back several hundred dollars, nearly all my S investment. And in exchange I spent $220 on a new body.

Oops: it's a Pentax!
It simply isn't possible to deal for a choice µ43 body ($600+) without spending the same amount of cash that the S gear provides. And in effect my PK lens set is fully fleshed out - but it lacked a body. My K-01 shutter may repair itself (as many people report after it sits a while) but I won't bet on it. 

I found a low-shot black K-s1 body, with its nice 20Mpx sensor and odd but very small body. I've owned it before and lamented its limitations, but for the time and price it will serve.  

(I immediately spent $40 more on a spare solenoid. And yes, it's needed.) 

It has 'better' pixels (more, and larger) for duplicating my piles of slides and negatives compared to the GX7. Somewhere around here I'm sure I have seen a spare Li190 battery too.

HD only for video - but it's Pentax so the video-greedy won't bother. In other ways it will do quite nicely. 

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The second bit.

An Oly eM1² will arrive soon, and the gx7 will depart. After a few days of site-searching I found an acceptable price for a copy. This will be the weather resistant and usb-c charge body, and the 4k video option. Almost everything, actually.

I shall pick up a wx resistant zoom in the near future.. oh!

Update: it will be a 12-60mm f/2.8-3.5 Zuiko Digital SWM. It will zoom the same direction as the 70-300, which will be nice. It will be bulky but that's also a match. It was the same price as 'that' 12-60 but gains me pretty much a stop of extra light. I should use a wx sealed adapter though, at some point..

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Update II: it will also be a 40-150mm f/4 - much to my surprise! I found a really nice deal on a used copy. Not many of these show up used, so the owner must have stepped up to f/2.8 or a longer telephoto. 

This gives me a sealed option for long shots, and also provides great overlap with both 12-60 and 70-300 lenses. And if I decide to switch to a 12-45/4 or 12-40/2.8 at some point, I'm in a good spot. Hopefully the 12-60 will prove worthy though! 

The new era begins next week.

Is the Pentax kit now superfluous? Hmm.

ending '25 with a splash

We set a new personal best for rainfall.. or perhaps the worst?

 This month has edged out October 2017 as our wettest month here on the hill-top. Since Octobers are drier than Decembers around here, that month still wins on percent of normal, so it keeps its trophy for that record! 

We still have over a week to go, but that %-normal record looks safe. The forecast for now through New Years Day looks relatively dry. The previous two Decembers came in around 10 inches, just above average.

For 2025 minus a week, we are nine inches above the annual average. That's a comfortable number, about 20" above our driest year and 18" short of the calendar-year wettest. 

  Year-end update: 67.99"

sorting out the 2026 kit

 So now I have a decent setup with plenty of coverage. Some things aren't ideal, but it will do for as long as it must.

The most recent lens is an older Tamron Di 28-300 VC. It's not the newest and it's used, but the AF speed is a bit better than the Canon lenses. Its close-focus skills are very good, about 3/8 life size. The nose does spin when focusing.

Here are a few simple kit options, and some clarity on specific lenses.

• The 20-60 has weather seals so it's a clear option when the weather could make a difference, the Meike 35mm has a seal at the mount but no others. This suggests I can bring primes for the lower end and zoom after 70 or 100mm, whichever seems appropriate. 
• I cannot imagine enough times when 20mm isn't wide enough - and I can stack my own panorama in those rare cases. Also, 20mm f/3.5 seems sufficient for astronomy compared to an f/2.8 lens, so the 20-60 plus 35/2 and 70/2.4 should suffice for sky images.
• As to zooms, I have a few more than I need. The Vivitar 70-150/3.8 works very well and its push-pull makes for nice video zooming. It's not worth much on the used market so its place is safe for now, along with the Nikon-F to L adapter. The 100-300 isn't top notch at its long end, but for now it can stay. The 70-210 is a definite keeper until someone brings out an L-mount model with superior AF, some weather protection and hopefully OIS. The Tamron claims to have VC but my tests showed very little benefit, so perhaps its implementation isn't happy with S5 and adapter. With it turned off it's not a low light champ either, so that might turn off the S5 internal stabilizing; the 70-210usm definitely shows better shake reduction overall.

It's nice to have more functional options! The EF-L is greatly superior to SA-L that I tried earlier, since my old SA lenses were not sufficiently compatible for autofocus. 

But wait! More sky fun

After a foot of rain this past week from two skyrivers, another awaits! 

Today and tomorrow are almost dry - but by Monday afternoon another arrow of tropical punch has the PacNW in its sights. It appears to slide south sooner (map of tue at 4pm), which would be a great relief to Washington. Still a bit early to say.. though last week's modeling was very good! 

Monday will be wet in any case. Our forecast is for 4" by Thursday. Ug. If the moisture sags south, we get to be on the cool side, meaning the snow that departed last week will start to rebuild. That would be good news!

p.s. It's interesting to see that Monday 12/22 (8-9 days out) shows cooler air at the Canada border and a low-pressure system drifting SSE along the BC coast! All three models (GFS, ECM, GEM) show a very similar pattern. That pattern is our typical low-elevation snow pattern for winter - and Winter begins the day before!

We'll see how they treat things in subsequent runs.. but it's undoubtedly "interesting"..