Chapter Forty-Nine
September 6th
Temperature: 80 degrees
Winds: 5 MPH
Pressure: 29.974 bars
Rain: 0 inches
Joseph was already in the office when Alfred arrived Thursday morning and had the notes along with the D.C. office’s regional forecasts set aside on the table. Both men were in genial moods despite the early hour. The island had transformed overnight with the start of a cool front that had dropped the temperature to nearly eighty degrees. Whatever it was—the start of autumn, a confluence of fronts, the effects of the storm on the eastern coast—it was a tease to the end of a blistering summer and had eased the island’s suffering a touch.
“We’re due to take observations at Pelican Island,” Joseph announced, “but I was hoping to visit Captain Gregory this afternoon.”
“Is he well?
