Dear Mother Nature: Seriously?
Posted on August 4, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 44 Comments
Sixty-nine degrees at 3pm on August 4th? Really? It was supposed to get up to 85 today, but, no. Wasn’t to be.
Disclosure: it doesn’t really bother me, other than in a vague, existential “I’m supposed to be having summer because I’m in the northern hemisphere” sort of way. I just like pretending to be annoyed.
I’m enjoying paying lower electric bills from not using the air conditioner.
The wife and I just got back from a trip to Amsterdam, and we realized we’re completely over the shopping mall/housing track/barren landscape of Southern California. We’ve considered Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon as possible relocation spots, but I’ve always found the pictures you post of Ohio to be breathtaking. How do you like living in Ohio?
63° F sounds so nice right now.
Spent the weekend in Boise, ID. Hotter than the devil’s asshole. Especially in full ACU, with no A/C in the barracks at night.
Coulda been worse, tho. Coulda been in Iraq.
=^)
Yeah, Michigan is rolling the same way this summer. Granted, I’m not complaining since I prefer the cooler weather (“good sleeping weather”, as my mom says). However, my hubby is a little bummed, being an avid swimmer, since it’s been BRRR for swimming.
Just found your site via BoingBoing.net. Enjoying.
What #1 said.
The San Francisco bay area has been in the 70s and low 80s around the bay nearly all summer so far. There’s been fog in overnight pretty much every night, and it takes long enough to burn off that we aren’t getting 90s and 100s.
Global warming, where art thou?
I am happy. It was ONLY 92 when I came back from lunch a minute ago. Cooler than it has been but still always fun to melt inside the car.
Well I am annoyed. 85 and humid as all get out. Bleah. Broke a sweat just going to the mail box. This is coastal San Diego, I want it perfect! Everyday! The clouds are pretty but come on. What happened to the dry heat? Hehe. Gotta love the weather. Can’t do a thing about it yet we watch the weather on TV. We have the weather channel for pete’s sake. Then we bitch about it, LOL.
If they came up with an AI computer and made two of them would they agree with each other? See what happens to your head when you get laid off?
Um hello, Dayton has blizards in Summer AND Winter. Did you not get the memo?
At least here in Phoenix it is a nice sunny 115, or as I affectionaly call it “A hundred and God hates us”
The northeast has been the same. We had two 90 degree days and those were back in April. I didn’t have to put in my air conditioner until last week as well.
It’s supposed to get to 90 tomorrow. We’ll see, that’s what they said about today.
I can’t complain, I am actually pretty happy with the temps, it just doesn’t feel like summer and it’s almost over.
Of course, this is fodder for my father who exclaimed, “Back in ’79, we had a summer like this. It proceeded to snow 4 feet the next winter. It never stopped. We froze TO DEATH.”
Bring it on, Mistress Winter.
Trade you. Hotter than Hades here in Florida, ridiculous thunderstorms every single afternoon, almost like clockwork. You can have it, I’ll take your pretty, cool days.
Gosh, it only took 6 comments for someone to make the “it’s cooler here, where’s the supposed Global Warming?” reference.
Global Warming = warmer ocean temps = less of the oceans natural stabilizing effect on weather in its traditional role as a big frickin’ heat-sink.
Global Warming =/= warmer temps world-wide.
Global Warming = more drastically varied weather, world-wide.
Why is this so hard to grasp?
Well, it’s been about 97 of your strange Fahrenheit degrees for the last 2 1/2 weeks here in central B.C, Canada. Finally temperature dropped to 71 or so today. ( I’m used to thinking in degrees Celsius, so it’s nice when google provides me a handy calculation tool.)
Here in the Portland, OR area it got up to 107 last week O_o.
You can happily borrow some of our heat if you’d like. No need to return it!
@10 I remember that storm, most of my fellow employees who commuted by other than subway couldn’t get to work, so I ended up with a very long day. It may have been the last time I worked camera on a show or the street.
I am always careful to make a distinction in weather futures between “it was supposed to … ” and “it was predicted to … ” This is because what happened is obviously what was supposed to happen, considering the high and low areas, prevailing winds, jet streams, all that crap. What was predicted to happen is what the “meterologist” on TV said would happen, which is correct more often than not.
This distinction drives others around me nutso sometimes, as in
“Was it supposed to rain tonight?”
“Define ‘supposed to.’ ”
But I like it.
You can totally have our summer here in Seattle. Last week marked the hottest week *and* the hottest day in recorded history.
Since no-one in Seattle has air conditioning, we were a town full of very cranky people last week.
105 in Austin right now. Trade ya.
I’m a sucker for that “pretending to be annoyed” stuff. We’ve definitely warmed up in the Chicago ‘burbs–maybe it’s coming your way.
Gareth @12,
Thomas Friedman has suggested rebranding ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Global Weirding’ for exactly this reason.
I think the scientific community has decided to go with ‘Global Climate Change’ or something similar, which I do not find to be nearly threatening enough.
I wouldn’t advise taunting or questioning Mother Nature. Seriously.
I’m in the Seattle area, so I’m way-happy with the current cool-down we’re experiencing.
its 87 in DC. Feel free to come bask in our hot hot sun and traffic.
Brain W., Boulder is AMAZING. My brother lives out there, I would relish visiting him even if I hated him and his adorable spawn.
Heh, global warming or global climate change. Is that kinda like swine flu vs H1N1? If we can’t agree on what to call it how are we going to agree on what if anything to do about it.
Summer is over rated (says the man putting up with a 100 degree weather).
95 here in LA- as usual for this time of year, but the humidity is up some.
Julia@11, I remember that weather- I used to call it the 2 o’clock thunderstorm.
Awww… evidence of the cs4 love emerges ;)
We’ve got 82 º in Madrid, which is fine – except it’s almost 1:30 in the morning.
to put it in two words: lucky you
Dammit, another Austinite posted already.
Just to add to the Other Keith: hottest July on record going back 150 years. Likely to be the hottest summer on record. And, by the time it’s all said and done, who knows? We might just hit the hottest year on record.
At 7pm it’s a breezy 99º.
69? ohhh, heaven. I’ll trade you for the 100+ we’ve been having for the past week here in Washington state.
Trade ya? Mother Nature decided to quit screwing around and re-instituted summer in Philadelphia. It has been hot and swampy for a week now, and no break in sight.
After the cold July, I thought it very unfair that she should suddenly remember this is Philly.
Driving rain and sunshine this AM, down our way.
At the same bloody time!
*sigh* Okay, Coyote, quit playing poker with Florida’s weather gods and give us back our own – admittedly weird – Miami Valley weather.
Apparently our summer took a vacation in the Northwest, where I have friends in Portland, OR who were melting in the 90+ degree days they’ve been getting for most of July.
Well, Hot’lanta lived up to its name today…although only 75F on the way into work this morning about 9-ish, the humidity was at some insane level like 93%. So by the time I did the official office errands, which are only a few blocks apart, I was wringing wet and wondering why I’d even bothered to take a shower! By the time I left the office at 6, it was hovering around 90F. Guess summer finally got here this week.
ON the plus side, the cooler weather last month resulted in about a $40-$50 savings on my electric bill!! With higher rates than last year, that’s pretty darn good!
For July…in the South.
Bawahaha, look at the lower-48ers bitching about the weather. Bawahahahaha.
It’s 58 and there’s a chill rain falling here in the MatSu at the moment. Perfect for standing in a 34 degree river fishing for salmon.
Sissies.
;)
For #13 and the rest of you deg C people:
Here’s a way to go from C to F in your head.
Take your deg C, double it, subtract 10%, and add 32. You get deg F. Unfortunately going from F to C isn’t as elegant, sorry.
Man, it must be nice to have a “compound,” feeling the connection between your land and the weather. Don’t you go zapping my trees weather god. My family has a compound on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, going back a hundred years. There is even an old abandoned schoolhouse in the back woods where my grandfather taught remedial English, children used to walk there, apparently, from miles around to learn how to read and write. Grandpa Isaac, always imagined him being like William Strunk Jr. The weather fostered my imagination in many ways, being alone out there in the wilderness, connected to . . . well, to Life, the Universe, and Everything. It must be a source of inspiration . . .
I’m annoyed only because the kids are constantly grumpy about the cold summer…in our town in Southern Ontario we just had the coldest July ever, and it doesn’t look like August is going to be a winner either. Of course, we’ll probably get 30 degrees and sunny for September and October, when it will be too late to stop the whining.
In NW PA we have alot of weather (right)….mostly wet, grey and to those not equiped for it, inhospitable. It is an easy target, just like trial lawyers at a healthcare reform fund raiser. It pushes you into yourself for warmth, security and tolerence. It is the sound of wind and rain on the roof that focuses me on the safety and security of the life I have. it provides a perspective that boosts my joyfulness when sun does find its way down through the shroud of gloom that conspires to suck the sun loving soul out of visitors to my neck of the woods. It is a force field that drives away the leser equipped.
I lived in Tempe as I attended ASU. Every day for about a month I would jump out of bed and throw back the curtains to marvel at the onset of another tirelessly sunny day. I did eventually set in that this was it…relentlessly blue, bright…..and hot. It was its own hell….if you want hell it will find you.
But mostly, I don’t really think about it…nor do I mind it.
It is easy to be down about weather…iit can be hard to keep yourself in the sun even when everything and everyone around you is swriling under a low.
Yeah. Fresno weather is still being weird, too.
Supposed to be 95 F today (which is below normal), but the predicted high for tomorrow is 83 F. 83? In August, that’s downright cold around here.
Not that I’m complaining, you understand. I like not having to turn on the a/c at stupid o’clock in the morning, or having to leave it running all night.
KenS@35, I tend to stick with “double and add thirty” to go from C to F; it’s less accurate, but in the range that I’m usually considering (weather, particularly in the northeast US), it’s close enough. (Exact at 10C/50F, off by 5 degrees at 35C/95F and -15C/5F)
Bah. This has been one of the hottest summers on record down here. And we’ve been in a drought most of the time. Sustained 100+ F temperatures and 100% humidity–don’t even bother going outside. Hate you right now.
It’s Ohio. Wait five minutes and the weather will change.
Usually for the worse, but it will change.
Gareth ,
The comment about global warming was a joke.
Of course we know global warming causes it to be cool in the north.
Huh????
Hello everyone!
I’m sorry the summer hasn’t been as warm as you would like. Personally I detest heat and thought a little cooler would be nicer this year.
Oh, the snow storm in 1979? I was mad at my parents for moving me to Colorado Springs, CO. See just for right now I am in a mortal form and my emotions control the weather. Unfortunately most of humanity pisses me off a great deal of the time. Soon, however, I’ll be going back home and I’m afraid things are going to get very violent here on earth for awhile. Just thought I would let you know. Prepare for the worst, everywhere.
Enjoy your fall, it will be the last one for a long time.
Mother Nature,
Silvian Noels