Seattle Heatwave Sees Temps Above 65!

Today, which is really still Sunday, despite the timestamp, is the end of our 'heat wave' in Seattle. There were 'heat advisories' in effect for a couple days, to help people cope emotionally with the fact that they were perspiring in the Pacific Northwest.

Seattle may not have good weather, but it has fairly consistent weather. It is usually mild, and it is usually grey. After two years of living here, the new resident develops a 20-to-30-degrees-F comfort range, temperatures on either side of which routinely cause physical symptoms and spiritual crises. Here, the ideal is around 60 degrees, but most citizens can bear without great difficulty temperatures dipping to as low as 50 or soaring into the slightly-above-70 range. Below 45 is Positively Arctic; anything above 72 is Paralyzingly Torporific.

When it snows here, the Boy Scouts can't meet, the seniors can't get transportation to cribbage, the Lutherans can't have pancake breakfasts, no one goes to the Nordstrom Blowout Shoe Sale, everybody's Christmas bazaar gets put off till May, and people abandon their cars by the side of the road. Those who don't give up drive one mile an hour up steep inclines and then slide back down backwards, taking out all the other intrepid SUV-driving explorers with them.

But they very, very rarely have 'snow days' in Valdez, and people living in Phoenix or Fresno somehow manage to eat tomatoes, get haircuts, and read books even if the temperatures are routinely above a punishing 75 degrees. Here, we complain when the weather is monotonous, and then we complain more loudly when it deviates. What an odd little town. I will admit that I, too, perspired yesterday and was perplexed for a second, but I was reading in bed under two down comforters at the time, so my confusion was quickly put to right.