A Tornado Of Birds

I'm on the morning show this week, which means my alarm starts screaming at 1:30 a.m.-even so, I found a great excuse to stay up late Sunday night (and by late I mean 9 p.m. ).  Imagine a perfectly choreographed tornado of thousands of birds-all funneling into a chimney.  Sounds like a scene from a scary movie-but it's reality around sunset every night in September at a school in Northwest Portland. Take a look at some of my pictures.

Spectacular Smoky Sunrises & Sunsets

One of the first things I do when I walk into the weather center is check email for weather pictures.  Recently, viewers have done an incredible job of sending their pictures in.  Over the past week we've received some of the most spectacular sunrise and sunset pictures through news@koin.com.  The reason for the red, orange and yellow horizons? Sunny skies and plenty of smoke from wildfires.  Take a look at some of these beautiful pictures!  The shot above is the sunset over the Columbia River sent in by Barry O'Neil.

An Enchanted Island

I've found an enchanted island--and it's just 20 minutes from my doorstep.  Sauvie Island is spectacular.  The Willamette River flows on one side of the island, the Columbia flows on the other.  The second I drive over the bridge-I feel at peace. 

I fell in love today...

...with dahlias. I've always loved fresh flowers. They have an incredible ability to instantaneously put me in a good mood. A friend told me the other day-one of the "must haves" during a difficult life transition is fresh-cut flowers in your home. I agree whole-heartedly. That brings me back to the whole falling in love with dahlias comment. Today I went to the Swan Island Dahlia Festival.

See ya later, smoke!

Here's a picture taken from space Saturday afternoon (courtesy of NASA). You can clearly see the strong impact of the easterly winds on the Dollar Lake Fire smoke plume. It sent smoke rushing into the Willamette Valley, heck as far west as the Oregon coast!

Here's the picture taken Sunday afternoon. I know it's tiny-The Dollar Lake Fire is the northern most smoke plume in the picture (we have several fires burning in central Oregon right now). The winds really relaxed today. You can tell they switched direction and blew the smoke to the northeast.

A Smoky Day In Portland

A view from space of the Dollar Lake Fire smoke plume riding easterly winds.

Smoke from the Dollar Lake Fire looking west from Palmer Snowfield on Mt. Hood. Courtesy: Viewer Jeff Raetz

Viewer Garry Yarosevich watched the Dollar Lake Fire's explosive growth Saturday morning. Look at that smoke plume!

By this afternoon the smoke blanketed skies above Vancouver. This picture sent in by the Campbell family.

Mt. Hood Is On Fire!

Take a look at these pictures. Wild fires can be devastating and terrible-but I was in awe looking at Mt. Hood this afternoon before my live shots.