Coldest June On Record
At least three people will try to tell me this is a good thing. But I’m not buying it.
With [never-]snowplows in the mountain passes and the Seattle area’s coldest June start in recorded history, the Northwest’s freakishly chilly June gloom is a sunny contrast to climactic drama playing out in the rest of the nation.
Overall, daytime high temperatures in the region have averaged at least 10 degrees below normal — while overnight lows have been only slightly chillier than normal — translating into more gas and electricity use.
Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, calls 2008 “the worst year since 1917″ in terms of days under 60 degrees.
And it ain’t gonna get better.
The National Weather Service said temperatures should climb to about 70 by the end of this week but are expected to drop back to around 60 by Sunday.
And how’s this (emphasis mine) for ominous?
In some ways, Albrecht said, the current local weather pattern reminds him of 1993, which locally some people recall as the “year without a summer,” the gray drizzle broken by only a few warm spells, while the Midwest saw big floods and severe weather.
There was a fucking year without a summer? And some locals actually recall it? And it was only 15 years ago? And all the locals I know have been telling me that it never rains here and the summers are always gorgeous? Liars!
I swear to God, if we go 22 months between summers, that’s it. We are packing up and moving out. To some hellhole where people are dying in heatwaves and floods, I don’t care, but at least it’s summer, and really, isn’t that what summer’s about?
Tags: misanthropy, Seattle, weather
June 11th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I think the recollection of the summer without summer supports my post-partum amnesia hypothesis. A wash of hormones and endorphins confuse the memories of mothers, preventing them from recalling how god-awful and painful it was to go through childbirth. It’s a clever adaptation by mother nature to ensure that she does, in fact, agree to risk going through it again and continue to propagate the species and, well, probably discourages any sort of retribution on their mate or offspring.
In the case of Seadelusional adaptation, the beautiful summer weather must trigger the same sort of hormone and endorphin rush in this peculiar geographic cohort. Without the weather, they might actually recall the god-awful truth.
I hope there is no opportunity to test this particular hypothesis.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
[...] 2008 meet 1993. [...]
August 20th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
[...] actually probably part Seventy-Five, but I’ve only been around to document one personally and another from press reports from what is probably another dead [...]