a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
There was a break in the rainy weather today here in the city— with a powder blue sky, a little late afternoon sun, and blustery conditions.
Tonight the last supermoon* of the year— and the third in a consecutive sequence— is out. (There will be a fourth supermoon in this same celestial series in January 2026).
We have cloud cover and lots of rain here in the city in Seattle tonight, so for now I can only look for pictures of the supermoon online.
*A supermoon is a full moon that occurs when the Moon is at or near its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit, a point called perigee. This proximity makes the Moon appear slightly brighter and larger than an average full moon, although the difference may be difficult to notice with the naked eye. The term can also technically apply to a new moon, but it is typically associated with the visible full moon.
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I thought it too cold to go for a walk today—44°F (6°C)— then changed my mind at the last minute before dark.
I took the No 10 bus to Westlake Center at sunset to check out the Christmas tree and its lights. (Pike Place Market is just a few blocks away).
There were not a lot of people around, probably because it was chilly (43°F/ 6°C). A few Seahawks fans were back from Lumen Field, where the Hawks took out the Minnesota Vikings 26-0 tonight.
The sun wasn’t out today, and it was a cold fall day here in the city.
The low this morning was 38°F (3°C) and the high 52°F (11 °C).
Here is the sun today, with about 45 minutes of daylight remaining.
The days are now 9 hours 5 minutes long, with sunset at 4.27 pm.
The trees that lead to the Volunteer Park Conservatory are now mostly bare of their leaves.
The sun was out, with broken clouds, today.
It was only 48°F (9°C) outside, though, and I bundled up for my walk this afternoon.
There was light rain on and off all weekend here in the city, and a little fog in the Seattle’s low-lying areas this morning. Some trees still have leaves on, but a lot have now shed it all.
Elsewhere in Washington State, in the Yakima River Basin, the severe drought conditions continue. Conrad Swanson writes for the Seattle Times ‘This might be the driest year in recent memory, fresh on the heels of severe droughts last year and the year before’.
There was more rain today (another inch or so).
I ventured outside with my umbrella before the gray outside tuned into black.
It rained on and off all day, and about 1.2 in (30 mm) was recorded here in the city the last 24 hours by late Wednesday night.
Judson Jones, meteorologist and reporter, writes for the New York Times:
Melissa made landfall in Jamaica with both 185 m.p.h. winds and the 892-millibar pressure.
In the Atlantic, only one other storm has ever struck land with this exact ferocity: the unnamed Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which tore through the Florida Keys.
Nearly a century ago, that storm’s pressure reading was taken by a weather observer who climbed a tree to record it.
Melissa’s was measured by a hurricane hunter plane that flew into the eye of the storm.
There were blue skies today.
I took these photos at Volunteer Park, and along Capitol Hill’s 14th Ave East.
The heavy winds knocked the power out for tens of thousands of Seattle metro residents last night. The power was still getting restored across the city and Western Washington today.
There was a break in the rain this afternoon, and I walked down to Elliott Bay Bookstore on 10th Avenue.
The store was still without power, but customers were allowed in.
I looked like they used their phones to pay for their purchases through the store’s website.
Laurin Girgis reporting for the Seattle Times:
Friday’s rain and gusty winds will continue through the weekend, with somewhere between half an inch to 1 ½ inches of precipitation accumulating in Seattle over Saturday and Sunday.
National Weather Service meteorologist Dev McMillian said Friday’s torrent of rain and wind came from an atmospheric river: a long band of moisture stretching across the Pacific Ocean and resulting in large amounts of precipitation. Saturday and Sunday, despite more precipitation coming in, will not be an atmospheric river, McMillian said. Rainfall rates Saturday through Monday are expected to be less than Friday.
Happy Friday from a very wet Seattle.
The city had about one inch of rain today, with windy weather and more on the way tomorrow. We also had the last 6 pm sunset for the year (but we could not see the sun at all today 😉).
The three US stock market indexes are again at a record high, even though it’s still October (many years past, a volatile time for the markets).
I do not understand why this is the case.
From what I glean on YouTube and elsewhere, lots of other bad numbers are also at a record high (or close to it, compared to the last 10 years or so): the gold price, bitcoin, credit card debt, student loan debt, the US national debt, mortgage rates.
The US government has now been shut down for 25 days. Hello?
Uncertainly over tariffs with America’s largest trading partners (China, Canada) drags on, unresolved.
About 1.9 million Americans have been looking for employment for 27 weeks or longer now— and we’re told that AI is soon going to kill millions of entry-level jobs for humans.
The Sep. 2025 inflation number that came out today (3%) is actually the highest since January.
Western Washington’s interior lowlands got its first frost of the autumn this morning.
Here in the city of Seattle the low was still above freezing: 40°F (4°C).
Happy autumn equinox (spring equinox south of the equator).
There is a very strong typhoon brewing in the South China Sea— Super Typhoon Ragasa. (Ragasa is Tagalog for scramble.)
The water level in Hong Kong is forecast to rise about 2 meters (6.5 feet), and the maximum water level in some areas could hit 4 to 5 meters (13.1 to 16.4 feet) above the typical lowest sea level.
HONG KONG (AP) — Southern Chinese cities scaled back many aspects of daily life on Tuesday with school and business closures and flight cancellations as the region braced for one of the strongest typhoons in years that has already killed three people and led to the displacement of thousands of others in the Philippines.
Hong Kong’ s observatory said Super Typhoon Ragasa, which was packing maximum sustained winds near the center of about 143 mph (230 kph), is expected to move west-northwest at about 14 mph (22 kph) across the northern part of the South China Sea and edge closer to the coast of Guangdong province, the southern Chinese economic powerhouse.
– Kanis Leung writing for Associated Press
There was drizzle on and off here in Tokyo on Thursday, at a damp 85°F (30 °C).
Outside, I could only take pictures here and there with my big camera, but managed to get a few of the iconic 1914 Tokyo Station building (extensively renovated and restored in 2012).
I also made my first run to the Yodobashi Akiba store in Akihabara.
It was a smooth and uneventful flight and we arrived 30 minutes early at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
It was a short ride (20 mins) on the Keikyu train line to get me to Shinagawa station. I had set up my transit card (Suica card) from my visit two years ago as a digital transit card in my iPhone’s wallet. That way I can tap the reader at the gate with my phone, without even needing to unlock it.
Even though it was only a 6 or 7 minute walk to the hotel from Shinagawa station’s exit, I waited for the hotel’s shuttle bus.
The heat was still oppressive at 8 o’clock— 85 °F (30 °C) and high humidity.
P.S. I turned on my eSIM phone line from global mobile data service provider Ubigi and it works great— a first for me, to use an eSIM phone line for international travel on my iPhone. So it’s farewell to the expensive international service provided by AT&T (expensive, as in 3x or 4x more expensive! Yikes).
Top to bottom:
Smoky skies over Washington State;
Flying almost due west for 10 hours across the Pacific Ocean;
Welcome signs at the exit of the arrivals hall at Haneda airport.
At the gate at Handa airport’s Terminal 3
