Have not seen any sign of this here but I will have to set a glass out and collect some rain and look.
From Seattle station KOMO:
Mysterious "dirty rain" falling in Eastern Washington, Oregon
While it's been a routine, rainy day in Seattle, those over in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon have had a strange phenomenon: A dirty, milky rain.
Several reports have come in from Spokane, Walla Walla, Pendleton -- and really across much of that region. The rain has left a dirty residue on cars and has flooded social media over there with people wondering what is causing the odd rain.
So far, the official cause remains a mystery, but officials with the National Weather Service offices in Spokane and Pendleton are looking into it.
The Walla Walla emergency management office posted photos of their area, which show much more of an ashen look to their rain. Their office suggests it all could be ash washing out from an eruption of Volcano Shiveluch in Kamchatka Krai, Russia. Their office says it spewed an ash plume to about the 22,000-foot level in late January and has deposited ash in a widespread area across parts of the Northwest.
The Sakurajima volcano in Japan is also acting up and could be the cause. From Volcano Discovery:
Sakurajima volcano (Japan): elevated activity
The volcano is starting the new year with a phase of comparably intense activity. During the past few days, about 6-8 vulcanian explosions have occurred each day, often with ash plumes exceeding 10,000 ft (3 km) altitude.
Milder, but near constant ash emissions occur during most of the intervals between the explosions.
Here is the Volcano Discovery entry for Shiveluch:
Shiveluch volcano (Kamchatka, Russia): large explosive eruption this morning
A powerful explosion occurred this morning, at 02:08 local time, at the volcano. It seems a large-volume pyroclastic flow of several km length and an ash plume rising to approx. 33,000 ft (10 km) altitude were generated.
The eruption occurred from the same area of the active lava dome as the ones during the past weeks, i.e. from the north side of the dome's cone near the 1964 caldera wall.
Got a mason jar with a funnel out on the back deck - give it an hour or so and see what we get...
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