Location Taken: Along the Fraser River, British Columbia
Time Taken: June 2010
There’s one really odd aspect of moving from Maryland to the Seattle area: the weather. It follows very different patterns here.
In Maryland, and all the other areas I’ve lived until recently, the weather revolved around the frontal system. A strong line of storms and wind would come through, then a week or so of calm weather, and then another front. Sometimes we wouldn’t get rain from a system coming through, but there were still subtle changes in air pressure and temperature. Well, not so subtle for the temperature. Large shifts are pretty common. Worst I saw was when it went from being in the comfortable 60’s one day and chilly 20’s and snowing the next. This gave life a backdrop of wave-like motion, as the fronts came in and out.
Out here, though, there isn’t a frontal pattern. Sure, it rains a lot, but it’s not associated with strong clumps of low pressure passing through. Water gets picked up by the atmosphere as it passes over the ocean, and then gets dropped again when the air slowly drifts up and over the Cascade mountains. The precipitation is blobby, clear in some areas, raining in neighboring ones. It’s not heavy that often, either. Usually it’s a gentle rain, floating out of the sky rather than truly falling. And the temperatures stay fairly stable. There have been a few heat waves, a couple days where the temperatures spiked, but aside from those? It’s been in the 50’s and 60’s the entire time I’ve lived here.
Around this time of year, back in Maryland, I’d have gone fully nocturnal to escape the daytime heat. I’d also be slowly melting mentally, as the average temperature hit 70 and above. Summer has long been a time where I did nothing of note, merely survived.
I can already tell Summer’s still going to be my least favorite season. It’s sunny far more often than not here during June and July, so I’m spending less time outside. But there are some cloudy days, even rainy ones. And the temperatures are still pleasant.
One of the most interesting things about living here is going to be learning the cycles of the seasons, I can tell. They’re quite different than what I’m used to, far more subtle.
I like subtle.
