Marine air

Our rotten west coast heatwave has broken at last. In the illustrious words of our all-knowing weathermen at the National Weather Service,

"WEATHER PATTERN WILL BE VERY COMPLEX DURING THE NEXT
24 TO 48 HOURS. THE ONLY CONFIDENT STATEMENT THAT CAN BE MADE IS THAT
TEMPERATURES WILL BE CONSIDERABLY COOLER DURING THE NEXT 7 DAYS AND
MUCH MORE TYPICAL OF AUTUMN."

Which means that it'll be cooler, and it might rain, or it might not. I mean, just look at the Doppler.

Naturally it's all mostly north of us, but we might get some sprinkles.

So I'm sitting outside with the kids ...

... and the air feels like it's just in from the beach. And I suddenly realized what people mean in books when they talk about the Tang Of Salt Air.

I've read that phrase for years. Whenever we went to the beach, I'd stand and sniff the air, trying to smell some kind of tang. I imagined it might be kind of like lemon juice, or fresh pine. But there's no smell like that at the beach, unless the seaweed is washing up, but even that's not the Tang Smell.

And just today, I figured it out. The Tang of Salt Air is actually that cold, wet bite in the back of your throat. It smells really fresh.