The Bay Area woke up to a collective “WTF is happening” yesterday morning, making today’s grey smokey sky a grim sigh of relief. Was it finally the apocalypse? Cue an earthquake, a tsunami or tornado. Nope, it was not the apocalypse, it was a simple perfect [fire] storm of events. Despite the unease, many people were posting photos of images that, let’s hope, we never see again. We have been collecting the most striking photos of the day from Instagram — if you have one to share, please dm or tag us in yours @marinmagazine.
What Happened?
If you are still wondering WTF that was, here’s a quick recap of what two of our local newspapers called a nuclear winter. First, in Amy Graff’s SFGate article with the phrase in the title she wrote, “The reddened sky cast a sepia tone and made the world outside look like Mars or a scene from the 1982 dystopian sci-fi film Blade Runner.”
In the Mercury News article titled, “It’s kind of like nuclear winter,“Nico Savidge and Rich Hurd wrote, “In a phenomenon never before seen at such a scale, wildfires are changing the weather of an entire region, meteorologists said. And with 28 major fires burning in California alone, forecasters don’t know when it will end.”
Adrian Rodriquez of the Marin Independent Journal, reports that smoke and haze will linger. “We’re so smoked in that it’s creating insulation,” National Weather Service meteorologist Cindy Palmer said, explaining that temperatures are much lower than what was in the forecast. “We’re still under a blanket.”
Mimi Towle is a Marin-based writer and editor. Currently the editor of Marin Magazine, she enjoys the various perks of her job, which include meeting chefs, winemakers, and inspiring characters. As a volunteer philanthropic advisor for the EACH Foundation, she focuses on needs in her home state of Hawaii. Some of her favorite nonprofits include City Beat, Hawaii Land Trust, and University of Hawaii Cancer Center.
