Is Puget Sound healthy? Join us May 10 to find out!

By: Jessie Payne, Environmental Assessment communications manager

A big question has been on everyone's mind lately: 

Is Puget Sound healthy? 

This may seem like a simple question, but talk to our scientists, and you'll hear that the answer can be quite complicated. The answer depends on the situation and what aspect of health you're interested in. 

Today in Ecology's podcast, we sit down with our Scientific Environmental Modeling Engineer Mindy Roberts to discuss this question and learn about a talk she'll give tomorrow evening in Tacoma for the Pacific Science Center Science Café. 

Join Mindy at the Science Café event

Describing the health of Puget Sound is as complicated as describing your own personal health. At the Science Cafe, Mindy will dive into some of the latest water quality findings and discuss ways that everyone can help improve the health of Puget Sound.

Join Mindy in Tacoma to learn about some of the latest science we have on Puget Sound. Bring friends who want to understand the different ways we measure its health.

What?	Pacific Science Center Tacoma Science Café “Is Puget Sound Healthy?”
When?	Tuesday, May 10 at 6:30 p.m.
Where?	The Swiss Restaurant & Pub 1904 Jefferson Avenue, Tacoma

Science Cafés are open to all ages. No science background is required, and no question is too basic. Learn more about the Pacific Science Center Science Café event.

Puget Sound science at Ecology

Scientists at Ecology collect, research, and provide credible data to guide our agency's environmental choices for Washington. They work to help us track our environmental health, and to ensure the actions we've taken are working. Learn about our Puget Sound science.

Eyes Over Puget Sound: Air temps in the 70's at 2,500 feet!

El Niño persists! This month's Eyes Over Puget Sound marine monitoring flight found once again, air temperatures are running warmer and precipitation is higher than normal for this time of year. Our winter snow pack is in much better shape than this time last year, but we've lost some due to our recent stint of warm weather.

View this month's report

While flying this month, we noticed the outside cabin thermometer reading 72 °F at 2,500 feet above the ground! With weather this warm, we're keeping a close eye on snow levels and Puget Sound temperatures.

In the February issue

Scan photos from the Feb. flight on Flickr.

Winter's heavy rains bring us higher river flows, which means lowered salinities in Puget Sound and coastal bays. This influx in cool water doesn't seem to be making much of a difference in water temperatures however. Puget Sound waters remain at record-breaking highs.

It appears 2015 may not be our only year of the jellyfish. We saw large patches of jellies in the southern finger inlets of the Sound. Also, signs of phytoplankton blooms are already visible in coastal bays.

As you can imagine, winter weather can make it very difficult to find a good day to fly. When we can't take to the skies our research boat, the Skookum, gets the job done!

Read about this and more in February's report

What's Eyes Over Puget Sound?

Eyes Over Puget Sound combines high-resolution photo observations with satellite images, ferry data from travel between Seattle and Victoria BC, and measurements from our moored instruments. We use a seaplane to travel between our monitoring stations because they are so far apart. Once a month, we take photos of Puget Sound water conditions and turn those out, along with data from our stations, in the monthly Eyes Over Puget Sound report.