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Why the rain that soaks Juneau is good news for salmon
Southeast Alaska’s famous rain keeps streams cold, deep and full of oxygen, which is exactly what young salmon need.
Ask anyone who has lived through a Juneau October and they will tell you about the rain: the steady, sideways, all-day kind that turns the Mendenhall Valley a deeper shade of green and makes a dry pair of socks feel like a luxury. Visitors tend to apologize for it. Biologists tend to celebrate it, because the same water that fills gutters downtown also fills the hundreds of small streams where salmon begin their lives.