The Skagit River In Washington Continues To Shrink While North Texas Shivers From A Cold Front

This morning my nephew sent me email with some more photos of the incredibly shrinking Skagit River in the Skagit Valley of Washington.

The only text in the email said, "Day 48 without rain: Playing with what little remains in the Skagit."

That is my nephew on the left and my great grand nephew (or is it grand great nephew?) Spencer Jack, on the right.

Meanwhile, with the Skagit Valley turning into a desert, here in North Texas we got our promised cold front, blowing in from the north overnight.

Yesterday's high of 104 was record breaking, breaking the record of 102, set in 1963.

This morning when I went swimming it was 62 degrees. I am really terrible at arithmetic. I may be a Republican. But I think that is a 42 degree drop overnight. The sudden drop made the water in the pool seem very warm, because it was. Way warmer than the air.

As you can see, below, it has warmed up a little since this morning's low. The wind chill factor has the air currently feeling like it is being chilled to 60 degrees.

And then there are the current weather stats from my old home zone of Mount Vernon, where it is currently one degree colder than what it feels like in Fort Worth. With Mount Vernon having no wind chill factor factoring in to the equation.

It appears, if the Mount Vernon forecast is correct, that the long Western Washington drought may get a one day respite on Monday, with a low temperature only 11 degrees above freezing.

With it suddenly being so cold at my location on the planet I think I will make a trek to the Tandy Hills today. That should be fun.

And now a couple more of my nephew's photos of the incredibly shrinking Skagit River.

I am amazed that the river is so low that a sand bar has appeared at this location by the downtown Mount Vernon bridge. I have helped sandbag, on more than one occasion, the area on the same side of the river as the white building, sandbagging that was necessary to stop the Skagit River from destroying downtown Mount Vernon during a pair of biblical level floods, (I may slightly exaggerate, there were no arks) that happened only two weeks apart, back in the 1990s.

Mount Vernon is currently building a more permanent fix to the flooding threat than temporary sandbags, in a needed Skagit River Vision project, building a flood wall.

Meanwhile, I think I may have mentioned it before, Fort Worth is also building a flood prevention project. Called the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. Unlike Mount Vernon's flood control project, Fort Worth's is totally not needed. And will result in a ridiculous flood diversion channel that will end up likely being yet one more Fort Worth Eyesore. With a little pond called the Town Lake, which will give Fort Worth a beautiful waterfront.

Above, that is Spencer Jack in what remains of the Skagit River, with his favorite girlfriend, Brittney.