Category: Weather

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Thursday/ the year’s last supermoon 🌕

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.
[Google AI Overview]

A supermoon, the last full moon of the year, rises behind the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in San Francisco. This one is called the Cold Moon.
[Associated Press Photo/ Godofredo A. Vásquez]
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Tuesday/ frosty mornings 🧣

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.

It’s 4.00 pm on the nose, and I’m on 22nd Avenue East looking out towards the east. Sunset is 19 minutes away. There’s the moon in a bare sky, not quite full. (The full moon on Thursday will be the Cold Moon.) No cloud cover means temperatures will dip down close to 0°C in the early morning.
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Sunday/ Christmas lights 🎄

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.

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Saturday/ cloudy and cold ☁️

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’s looking out to the Olympic Mountains at 3.26 pm today from my usual spot on the corner of 14th Ave East and East Thomas St on Capitol Hill.
It looks like the Christmas lights (cables with lights) are up, on top of the Space Needle.
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Sunday/ rainy weekend ☔

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’.

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Thursday/ more rain ☔

There was more rain today (another inch or so).
I ventured outside with my umbrella before the gray outside tuned into black.

Here’s Republican Street and 15th Avenue East on Capitol Hill. The holiday lights on the trees are on already, to bring a little cheer to the gray outside.
Looking down Thomas Street at 12th Avenue. The red beacon light is already blinking on the Space Needle’s flag post .. and is that an S on the flag? I wondered.
And here’s the answer: yes, it’s an S for Seattle Torrent, the name for Seattle’s new women’s ice hockey team. They will play in Climate Pledge Arena. The eight teams in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) are the Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montréal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge, Seattle Torrent, Toronto Sceptres, and Vancouver Goldeneyes.
[Picture posted on Space Needle’s Instagram, but without any names]
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A wet Wednesday ️🌧️

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.

Here’s 2.45 in downtown/ South Lake Union.
I’m about to turn right onto Westlake Avenue to go to Wholefoods Market. Free parking in their garage when it rains outside is nice to have.
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Tuesday/ Melissa makes landfall 🌀

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.

A weather satellite view shows Hurricane Melissa on Tuesday as it intensified and made landfall on Jamaica. To the north is Cuba, and to the northeast Haiti and the Dominican Republic. 
The distance from the eye of the storm to the top of the frame is about 200 miles (320 km).
[Picture from NOAA, posted in the New York Times]
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Sunday/ after the storm 🌬️

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.

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Saturday/ rain 🌧️

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.

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Friday/ rain, and record highs ☔

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.

Reuters calls the 3% inflation ‘cool’ just because it came in below the 3.1% that was expected.
At 3%, inflation is actually the highest it has been since January. What also gets lost in a headline of ‘cool inflation’ that is that nothing is cheaper (of course) —and some staple items are up by a LOT more, depending where you are and where you shop (orange juice 10%, coffee 19%, beef 7%, pet food 8%).
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Tuesday/ the first frost ❄️

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).

On my fence this morning: Mr. Squirrel, contemplating life while catching a little sun.
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Wednesday/ landfall 🌀

HONG KONG, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Hong Kong resumed flights out of its international airport on Thursday after a 36-hour suspension, reopening businesses, transportation services and some schools after the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year lashed the financial hub.
Ragasa brought the densely populated city to a standstill from Tuesday afternoon, after sweeping through the northern Philippines and Taiwan where it killed 14, before making landfall on the southern Chinese city of Yangjiang on Wednesday.
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Monday/ a typhoon at autumn equinox 🌏

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

A typhoon and a hurricane are the same type of storm—a powerful tropical cyclone—but they are given different names based on their geographical location. A hurricane is the term used for these storms in the North Atlantic, Central North Pacific, and Eastern North Pacific, while a typhoon refers to a storm of the same intensity and structure that forms in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
[Sources: Google AI Overview; Hong Kong Observatory]
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Thursday/ Akihabara and Tokyo Station 🚆

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.

Nice infographic from the hotel room TV. The pink blobs are Japan’s main islands. That’s Tokyo in the bottom right corner, showing that the 30 °C is down 7°C from yesterday (85 °F , down from 99 °F). Yay! .. even though it still feels very warm and humid. (And are those little characters chickens?)
This is about 9.30 am and I caught the tail end of the morning rush hour into, and out of Shinagawa station.
Office workers and a few others (me) streaming out of Shinagawa station. Walk on the sides, if you are coming into the station, said the display screen.
All right, now I’m heading down to the Yamanote Line— the loop line with Shinagawa station on it, near my hotel. This line has been in service for 140 years now (constructed 1885) and is used by some 4 million people every day. The train had left just a minute ago.
Hello, Yodobashi Akiba! It is by Akihabara station, 8 stops to the north of Shinagawa station.
The toys for kids of all ages are on the 6th floor. The bank of pink claw machines was not there two years ago when I last visited.
In Japan, claw machines are most commonly called “UFO catchers” (ユーフォーキャッチャー) or “crane games” (クレーンゲーム). The term “UFO catcher” comes from the appearance of the claw mechanism, which resembles a UFO descending to capture a prize, a term popularized by Sega when they introduced the game in 1985.
[From Wikipedia]
I bought a few of these Takara Tomy animal figures: the lion, the cheetah, a gorilla, a peacock, a shoebill stork.
Help! The shoebill stork fell down (is its bill too big and heavy?) and someone needs to come and fix the display case. The chameleon figure (bottom) has a movable tongue that can be pulled out and pushed back in. Nice. I now regret I did not get the chameleon, as well.
On the way back on the Yamanote line, I saw Tokyo Tower out of the train window by Hamamatsucho station. It seemed nearby and I stepped out and walked the five or six there— kind of regrettting it, because it started to drizzle. This green space near the Tower is called Shiba Park.
I’m standing under a Himalayan cedar, and that’s the Buddhist temple called Zojo-ji Temple.
From Wikipedia: At its peak the temple grounds had more than 120 buildings, but following the decline of Buddhism during the Meiji period (1868-1912), most of them burned down during the bombing of Tokyo in World War II. Reconstruction began after the war, with the Daiden (great hall) being rebuilt in 1974.
Here’s the Himalayan cedar. A plaque by the tree notes that General Grant (18th President of the United States) planted this tree when he visited Zojo-ji Temple as a guest in 1879 (that’s 146 years ago).  The main gate to the grounds is under renovation and enclosed in a sheet metal building behind the tree.
A cemetery by the temple, presumably with ashes from the deceased. The cemetery at Zojo-ji Temple holds the mausoleums of six Tokugawa shoguns* and their families, serving as the family temple for the Tokugawa clan.
*The shogun (short for Sei-i Taishōgun, 征夷大将軍) was the supreme military and political leader of Japan, ruling for nearly 700 years. The rule of the shoguns ended in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration, which was triggered by growing internal discontent and the disruptive arrival of Western powers.
Dai-Nokotsudo, or Shariden, is where the bones of deceased are stored. It is made of stone and was created in 1933.
Here are several pictures of the Tokyo station building, taken late afternoon and early evening. Tokyo Station is surrounded by many modern glass and steel office towers.

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Wednesday/ arrival in Tokyo 🗼

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

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Monday/ Japan’s scorching summer 🔥

My bags are packed, and I will fly west across the  International Date Line to Tokyo tomorrow.

It’s already Tuesday in Japan, and the highs are going to touch 99°F  (37°C) in Tokyo. By the time I arrive there on Wednesday evening, there will be a little respite from the heat, with rain on Thursday and Friday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency says the average nationwide temperature for the three months of June, July, and August was 2.36 °C (4.3 °F) higher than normal — the largest increase on record since comparable data became available in 1898.

From Google AI Mode, answering the question ‘Why is it so warm in Japan this summer?”
Specific meteorological patterns contributed to the long, intense heat this summer.
High-pressure systems: The Pacific High and the Tibetan High, two powerful high-pressure systems, extended over Japan during the summer. When they occur simultaneously, they create a “tall” high-pressure zone that suppresses cloud formation and produces prolonged periods of clear skies and sunny conditions.
Warming ocean currents: The ocean surrounding Japan has been abnormally warm. The Kuroshio (Japan Current), a warm current flowing northward from the Philippines, has been particularly active, holding the country in a “vice grip of warm water” and driving up temperatures even well into autumn.
[Still from national broadcaster NHK World with a meteorologist explaining the effects of the two overlapping high-pressure systems]