Hot Spring?

  

Although inland (e.g., Santa Rosa) air temperatures have almost reached 90°F during the last couple of days, Bodega Bay has stayed cooler.  The high temperature at the coast today (19 March 2026) was ~68°F (20°C). 

Views of mirages over Point Reyes were eye-catching in the mid-afternoon today — see above and below.

 

 

It looks like the first day of Spring might be even warmer, so here's hoping for cooler air temperatures soon after.

 

Heat + light

  

Mirage of Point Reyes from Bodega Head today, 17 March 2026 

Mesa Reyes?

 

 

Above, sunrise from Cotati on 18 October 2022...

 

...and below, a mirage of Point Reyes as seen from Bodega Head near sunset.  (Eric came up with the name "Mesa Reyes" because of the flat-topped and steep-sided appearance.)

 

 

 

There were all sorts of signs of warmer air temperatures today, including a bat swooping around our yard when we got home from work.  In Bodega Bay it looks like air temperatures reached ~65-68°F (~18-20°C) today.

 

P.S.  For an older series of mirage images, see "Can you believe your eyes?" from 7 April 2016.

 

Layers

Sunset sequence on 7 February 2018:

 

 

 

Can you believe your eyes?

Well, I'm out of time tonight, but I mentioned the amazing mirages visible during yesterday's heat wave, so I'll post a few pictures so that you can start enjoying and puzzling over them.  [Click on the images for slightly larger versions.]

These photographs show the shoreline north of Bodega Head near Jenner (the Goat Rock area and further north).  Note what appear to be incredibly sheer and improbably tall cliffs (at least for this area) at the waterline, and strange inversions of reality:

 

 

 

The next image is a boat offshore.  My basic (uninformed) impression is that there could be four images.  Starting at the bottom: (1) the boat at the ocean surface, then (2) an inverted image above it, then (3) a second image of the boat upright, and finally (4) a second inverted image above that.  I'm not sure about this, so see what you think:

 

When the weather clears, I'll photograph the same shoreline shown above for comparison.