June has rolled in as usual with its mix of sun and rain. The temperature has been very warm the last few days and the rain has felt like summer rain when it has fallen. This marks the first real break between the colder rains of winter and spring and the summer. It is an annual pattern here on the coast that the first warm burst of nice weather in the spring is always followed by an interregnum of mixed weather before the summer arrives. I think this unstable pattern happens as the annual summer high pressure cell forms over the Gulf of Alaska. Once that is in place, the northeast Pacific becomes quite stable, less windy and warm. There is very little rain typically from the middle of July to the end of September, until the high collapses with the waning sunlight and lessening solar energy.

We're clearly about a month or so away from the stable summer weather, but the rise in air temperature and the warmth of the rain indicates that the cold air has disappeared for now from the lower layers of the atmosphere. We might yet get some cool and wet days, but it feels to me like the burning season is well and truly behind us now. My last fire was last weekend during a cool evening rain storm.

Some kids have already been swimming on the island, although I haven't yet gotten around to it. Soon though. I have a great desire to do so though, perhaps this week.