Burnscape at a beach? You bet. One of the last things a North Carolina coastal visitor expects to see is a thick pall of smoke in the sky, but there it was, silhouetted sharply by the fading twilight. Much of the state had been in a drought, creating conditions ideal for wildfires in a normally moist part of the country. During the portions of three days I spent in the Newport-Beaufort area, several infernos raged inland over central parts of the state, lofting copious plumes of smoke to be carried downwind. This day had northwest flow, taking one of those smoke streams right past me to the west. The short, bright streaks were contrails created by several passenger jets flying along the East Coast.
1 ESE Atlantic Beach NC (12 Mar 8), looking WSW
34.6941, -76.6997