Just an hour back I noticed something strange; the windows were actually appearing ‘bright’ and when I peeked outside I could see shadows!  A look upward gave me the reason; the sun was actually visible!!  I was quite pleased to see it once again and for me that’s unusual as I favor cloudy, cool weather.  But this has been a very wet August to this point in semi-rural south central Alaska.  This is Monday, August 15^th and it has rained every day this month accumulating 4.18” as of 07:00 this morning.  While August is our wettest month the average monthly rainfall is 4.5” which means we’re already at 92.9% of said monthly average yet we are just 48.4% of the way into the month.

 Here are some signs of a wet August and the coming fall:

Some already yellow birch leaves floating atop a couple of dying mushrooms

Typical ‘shroom for this area with a non-typical shadow!

Female Spruce Grouse on Easy Barge Drive; when they begin to appear you know summer is winding down

Not sure what the plants are but when the leaves begin to turn brilliant red fall is not too far distant

Very wet boreal forest; the shimmering effect on the plants is due to being coated with rain drops