Climate - The climate of Washington varies within each region. (click here) The Cascades split the state and alter the weather patterns. The terrain east of the mountains, which includes Moses Lake State Park, receives approximately 12 inches of rainfall per year (rainfall map, click here), generally much less than west of the mountains. Since the area east of the mountains is landlocked, temperatures in this region are lower during the winter months. Frequent winds coming down from the mountains also contribute to the low temperatures of eastern Washington.
...According to local news, (click title to entry - thank you) the storm brought strong winds gusting to 43 miles per hour in places that propelled the dust across the southeast corner of the state. After numerous multi-vehicle accidents, sections of Interstate 90 near the town of Moses Lake and several local roads had to be closed for several hours.
A thick, rippling plume of dust runs northeast to southwest through the center of the image. Dust stretches as far south as the cities of Pasco and Kennewick, which sit on opposite banks of the Columbia River. In the north, the dust seems to rise primarily from the pale golden squares of fields farmed using dryland agriculture (That is a lot of lost top soil.), a common practice in arid eastern Washington. The dryland fields are larger and less colorful than the bright green and gold fields of irrigated agriculture near the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the center of the image.
Dryland farmers rely entirely on rainfall to sustain their crops, and as a result, do many things to preserve moisture in the soil. Some of these practices—leaving a field fallow after harvest to allow water to build in the soil for a year or covering the field with dry soil to prevent underlying moisture from evaporating—make dryland agriculture very prone to dust storms. These fields are likely either fallow or newly planted, probably with winter wheat, a common dryland crop in eastern Washington.
The dust storm persisted for several hours...
I-90 in E. Washington reopened after dust storm closure (click here)
01:57 PM PDT on Monday, October 5, 2009
By NWCN.com and Associated Press
MOSES LAKE, Wash. - Authorities reopened Interstate 90 between Moses Lake and Ritzville at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, 19 hours after it was closed due to blowing dust....
Pacific Ocean 'dead zone' in Northwest may be irreversible (click here)
Oxygen depletion that is killing sea life off Oregon and Washington is probably caused by evolving wind conditions from climate change, rather than pollution, one oceanographer warns.
By Kim Murphy
October 9, 2009
...But the dead zone off the Northwest is one of the few in the world -- and possibly the only one in North America -- that could be impossible to reverse. That is because evolving wind conditions likely brought on by a changing climate, rather than pollution, are responsible, said Jack Barth, professor of physical oceanography at OSU."I really think we're in a new pattern, a new rhythm, offshore now. And I would expect [the low-oxygen zone] to show up every year now," Barth said at a news conference.Thursday's briefing coincided with the release of a National Science Foundation multimedia report that said the number of dead zones worldwide was doubling every decade.In the Pacific Northwest, the report said, the areas of hypoxic, or low-oxygen, water that long have existed far offshore began to appear closer to land in 2002, a phenomenon that may mean they are even deadlier to sea life that exists near the ocean floor....
