La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Sustained rain has been so rare since April that its sudden abundance sprouts an editorial. There hasn’t been three days of rain and two inches in that short stretch, much less a month, since spring. These rains have ended the County’s burn ban, but farmers know this is too little coming too late.

Drought has been the region’s curse. While western Skagit County is in a moderate drought, the western foothills of the Cascades are classified as “severe drought” by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a multi-federal agency team.

The surprise summer blessing has been the absence of smoke. Wildfi...