apparently the weather and myself don’t get along very well. no matter where i go, it always does the complete opposite of what i want it to. what does that mean? well, that means it’s usually very warm or hot and dry no matter where i go. for texas that’s the typical weather there (so i thought until last month with all the flooding). so i had to deal with the heat and dryness there. then i move to atlanta briefly last fall and it was hot and dry when i got there. it did turn cold during the winter, but it remained fairly dry nonetheless. then in march i move to seattle…you know the city that is known for being one of the wettest and cloudiest places in the u.s. due to the influence of the pacific. i was expecting a lot of cloudy and drizzly days with occasional storm systems bringing heavier rain through may. i knew there was a distinct dry season here from june through late august and early september, so i new the rain would end at some point.
when i first arrive to seattle mid-march, it was cold and rainy for the first three weeks… rain pretty much non-stop and i loved it! then the storm systems became less and less though it was still pretty cool and cloudy through early may thankfully. early to mid may arrives and the solid cloud cover breaks and we start to see more sun, and even less rain (ugh…not the sun!). june, pretty much all sun and no substantial rain to amount to anything.
now for the heat that has been plaguing the west for the past couple of weeks. on of my recent photo blogs discussed how the cascades and pacific prevented the seattle area and western washington from getting very hot, but the long range models were showing a change in the weather pattern that would allow things to heat up considerably. well, they were right and it’s been bloody hot here for the past two days (hot for pacific northwest standards that it). coming from texas, this really isn’t all that hot as temps yesterday peaked in the lower 90s, though today will likely top out near 100 (it’s 95 right now in seattle with at least one or two more hours of baking sun remaining today). outside the heat is not all that bad because you know what to expect. however, just like in new york when i was living there, pretty much no one has air conditioning indoors as it’s not needed. there were definitely more air conditioners in new york than there are here since it gets hotter there more often during the summer than here. so that makes the heat that much more intense. people in the south laugh and joke about how northerners in the northeast or pacific northwest complain about temperatures in the middle and upper 90s when they deal with them and 100s on a normal basis. however, they fail to look at the fact that pretty much no building exists in the south without air conditioning and every modern building built within the last 20-30 years has a strong central air conditioning system. that’s not the case in here!
i don’t have air conditioning in my apartment, which i’m totally fine with because my electricity bill for a two month period is only $20 and it’s not really needed here. just leave the windows open all the time and it stays cool. plus the fresh air from outside is always more pleasant than recycled indoor air that you get with central air units. the downside is that when it gets this hot outside, it stays hot inside. right now my trusty thermometer at my desk shows that it’s 90 degrees in my apartment, which doesn’t feel all that bad coming in from outside. if it doesn’t cool off much at night, then it won’t indoors either even with the windows open. the one thing i can be thankful for is that when there is an intense heat wave here in the pacific northwest, it also means that there’s pretty much no moisture in the atmosphere since the onshore flow has been completely reversed. dewpoints remain low (32 degrees right now in seattle) and thus the heat index is not much higher than the actual temperature if higher at all. in new york, the heat waves were disgusting since there is still a lot of moisture in the air due to the southwest flow that brings in the hot air from the west. this flow also draws in gulf of mexico moisture into the northeast which makes heat index values skyrocket.
luckily the onshore flow returns tomorrow as the hot ridge of high pressure overhead now drifts east over the central rockies, and this brief heat wave will be over. temps will return back to the normal middle 70s for highs and lows in the lower to mid 50s once again! these past couple of days have just reminded me that no matter where i’m at, the weather will never cooperate and there’s just no escape from the f’n heat!