12/1 Snow?, KM pipe, protest, Oly growlers, Snake dam, norovirus, Whidbey shore, tax bill, dead humpback, safe tuna

(CBS News)

Will Snow Hit the Puget Sound Lowlands in a Few Days?
Some of the media have already started to talk about it: the possibility for much colder temperatures and lowland snow during the Sunday through Tuesday period. Let's analyze the possibilities, making use of the most powerful probabilistic forecasting tools at our disposal.  We will attempt to avoid the problems experienced during the October 15th storm by highlighting the forecast uncertainties and the use of ensembles. Cliff Mass forecasts. (Weather Blog) See also: It wasn't the rainiest November — but it was Vancouver's warmest (CBC)

Christy Clark says province close to endorsing Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
Premier Christy Clark is indicating the province is well on its way to endorsing the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. Speaking publicly for the first time since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced conditional approval for the project, Clark said the federal government is "very close"  to meeting the five conditions necessary for B.C. government approval. "I have said from the very beginning that the five conditions are a path to yes," said Clark, stating that the conditions could be met "much sooner" than the May 9 provincial election. Karin Larsen reports. (CBC)

Kinder Morgan pipeline: Protesters aim to revive spirit of Clayoquot
The battle plan is still being drafted, but First Nations and environmentalists are promising to take the fight against Kinder Morgan’s pipeline plans to the streets, the courts and the legislature. B.C. has a long history of environmental activism and anti-pipeline campaigners say they’re drawing from decades of experience to develop a plan of attack. Greenpeace oil sands campaigner Mike Hudema said Kinder Morgan can expect to face opposition from all sides, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his conditional support for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on Tuesday…. One model is the protests of the 1980s and 90s that secured the protection of Clayoquot Sound from logging. A key lesson is to keep up the pressure, Hudema says. Bethany Lindsay reports. (Vancouver Sun)

Navy Granted Permits For More Growler Jet Training On Olympic Peninsula
The Navy has just been granted permits by the U.S. Forest Service to expand electromagnetic warfare training over Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Now the Navy is cleared to drive trucks out into the Olympic National Forest, armed with electromagnetic signaling technology. Then growler jets will take off from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and fly overhead, searching for the signal trucks from the air. It's essentially a military training game of hide-and-go-seek. The trucks simulate cell towers and other communications behind enemy lines that the Navy wants to scramble. Ashley Ahearn reports. (KUOW)

Feds Discussing Snake River Dam Removal At Public Meeting In Seattle
Salmon art and an orca puppet will parade through Seattle Thursday afternoon. The procession is to attract attention to restoration efforts for wild salmon and steelhead runs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Advocates for endangered fish will hold a rally and then march to Town Hall Seattle, where one of 15 public meetings around the Northwest is taking place, in the wake of a ruling from a U.S. District Court. In May, Judge Michael Simon ordered federal agencies to take a fresh look at the Columbia River salmon plan. He said despite billions spent on habitat restoration and dam improvement efforts, it isn’t working. The ruling was the fifth time a judge has shot down the plan that guides dam operation and salmon restoration in the Columbia River basin. Bellamy Pailthorp reports. (KNKX)

Oyster-caused illnesses on Vancouver Island linked to same supplier
Island Health says norovirus is likely to blame after more than 100 people who ate raw oysters in Tofino earlier this month fell ill. Roughly 120 people, many of whom had attended the Clayoquot Oyster Festival, suffered gastro-intestinal symptoms last week. But Island Health says people got sick at more than one location, and that people reported being ill over the course of several days. They say it appears everyone who became ill consumed raw oysters from the same supplier, who is not being named. (CBC)

Whidbey Restoration Project Makes a Difference, For Shore
Salmon, crabs, clams and shorebirds got a happier home recently as DNR’s Aquatic Restoration crews freed up beachhead on southeast shore of Whidbey Island. Partnering with the Whidbey Camano Land Trust, the restoration program removed 440 feet of creosote-treated bulkhead from the Glendale Beach and Waterman Shoreline Preserve north of Clinton. Removal of the bulkhead allows the beach to again move in the free, dynamic way it naturally does. (Ear to the Ground/WDNR)

Are taxpayers liable for Enbridge’s $500m in Northern Gateway costs? Experts divided
Legal experts are divided on whether Enbridge Inc. can recoup some or all of the $500 million it says it has spent in seeking federal government approval to construct a $7.9-billion oilsands pipeline to Kitimat. Enbridge said company executives and their partners, including B.C. and Alberta aboriginal groups who were in position to get $2 billion in benefits, will discuss options after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet killed the Northern Gateway project Tuesday. Peter O'Neil reports. (Vancouver Sun)

2nd humpback death in 2 weeks worries experts, farmed salmon industry
Three humpback whale entanglements at B.C. fish farms in recent months, two of which resulted in deaths, have whale researchers and the salmon farming industry concerned. A juvenile humpback died last weekend after it became trapped between the inner and outer containment nets at Greig Seafood's Atrevida salmon farm in Nootka Sound. The death comes just two weeks after another dead humpback was found stuck in equipment at an empty Marine Harvest Canada fish farm on B.C.'s Central Coast. In that case, the whale became entangled in an anchor support line at a site north of Bella Bella. Megan Thomas reports. (CBC)

Burning less coal isn’t just making air cleaner. It’s making your tuna safer.
Nicholas S. Fisher got a research opportunity he couldn’t pass up. When he embarked on a study of fish two years ago, he didn’t know what he was looking for. All he knew was that a researcher in Massachusetts had samples of nearly 1,300 Western Atlantic bluefin tuna in a deep freeze and was offering them up for investigation. Today, his team’s findings are being greeted as some of the most positive news in a while related to the lowering of power-plant emissions. Studies of tuna caught in the Gulf of Maine between 2004 and 2012 revealed that levels of methylmercury in their bodies decreased at a rate of 2 percent per year, or nearly 20 percent over a decade. Darryl Fears reports. (Washington Post)

Now, your tug weather--
WEST ENTRANCE U.S. WATERS STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA-  230 AM PST THU DEC 1 2016  

SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY FOR HAZARDOUS SEAS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON  PST TODAY  
TODAY  W SWELL 11 FT AT 13 SECONDS...SUBSIDING TO 9 FT AT 12  SECONDS THIS AFTERNOON. W WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR  LESS. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS.
TONIGHT  E WIND 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 2 FT OR LESS. W SWELL 7  FT AT 11 SECONDS. A CHANCE OF EVENING SHOWERS. RAIN LIKELY LATE.

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