Smoke hindering propagation

[larrykenney]

For the past week or so, we've been sitting in a cloud of smoke here in the San Francisco Bay Area blowing in from the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, CA and the surrounding area and is still burning.

During this period I've noticed that signals from the Sacramento/Stockton stations transmitting from Walnut Grove, CA, have all been about 5 dB weaker than normal. Apparently the smoke is hindering the propagation of the signals, both on VHF and UHF, over the 65 mile path.

Larry
SF

 

[harshness]

As highly concentrated as the particulates are, this is certainly understandable. My sister said the index was 221 in San Mateo on Wednesday and that is nothing short "thick".

 

[comfortably_numb]

I've been watching a live cam feed of the smoke over SF on my Ku dish this afternoon. It definetly does look thick.

 

[primestar31]

Just horrible all the way around. I raked and burned a HUGE pile (20ft across, and 5ft high) of OAK leaves the other day, and I was amazed to see how fast they went up, and I used NO gas or anything else. They were dry from falling off the tree, and they burned as if they were soaked in gas. Compared to the maple tree leaves I had been burning once a week for a month (that drop much earlier than oak leaves) that you can barely keep burning, these things practically exploded!

I can only imagine how bad it is when these fires start in California and burn so hugely.

 

[N5XZS]

New Mexico has fair share of brush fire in the past. It can be scary at times. So California, you are not alone here. Hopefully things will turn around sooner the better when we get decent rain.

 

[harshness]

Hopefully things will turn around sooner the better when we get decent rain.

Alas, while some regions of the US are getting unseasonable rains and snows, the weather hacks keep pushing out the rain forecasts for Northern California. We've had some of that here in Oregon as well as there hasn't been much in the way of rain for a couple of weeks and there isn't any forecast until Wednesday. This morning they're predicting a rain event starting Tuesday night in the Bay Area and another on Friday.

The upside is that we've been getting some North winds that are blowing the smoke back towards California.