Maria Mudd Ruth

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Dr. Dale Ireland--Cloud Chronicler

Photo by Maria M. Ruth

Fans of the sky, clouds, and the weather lost Puget Sound's finest chronicler--Dr. Dale Ireland who passed away suddenly in April 2012. I have posted links to his time-lapse videos of clouds taken daily, sunrise to sunset, from his front deck in Silverdale overlooking Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains. "Dr. Dale" was a dentist, astronomer, and photographer with a passion for the clouds that enhanced our appreciation of the daily spectacle of the sky and clouds.

I used to watch Dr. Dale's videos daily--they are mesmerizing--but got out of the habit and then took up with the clouds above my own deck in Olympia...and the marbled murrelets in the sky elsewhere. Last night, a friend passed on a link to a two-minute time-lapse video over Discovery Bay. In exchange, I decided to find my way back to Dr. Dale's website to send her the link to his daily videos, but found, instead, meteorologist Scott Sistek's appreciation of Dr. Dale's work. Sistek, of KOMO News, often featured Dr. Dale's videos to illustrate certain meteorological phenomena during his broadcasts. Sistek posted a "best of" Dr. Dale's short cloud videos in his lovely "Remembering Dr. Dale Ireland."