The "Participation Trophy" for Weather

by Tom King (c) 2012

Okay, I'm probably being ungrateful.  The temperature here in Puyallup stays pretty steadily in the comfortable range. We only get a couple of decent snowstorms in the winter. Their idea of a heat wave is a blistering 79 degrees.  It hit 85 last summer and the natives were passing out on the streets. All in all, so long as Wal-Mart doesn't run out of anti-depressants (which happens sometimes), the weather is pretty mild.

Warm Pacific currents pump warm tropical air up through the western half of the state keeping the temperatures even. Haven't heard of them having many hurricanes or typhoon or whatever they call them  rolling in off the Pacific. Just clouds mostly. They have a special name for when the sun comes out because they see it so infrequently up here. Along the coast at Forks and LaPush, vampires can safely come out and run down to the Dairy Queen to hang out with their friends in the middle of the day. The overcast is that reliable. And that's pretty much my complaint.

I grew up in North Central Texas where we have real weather. When it's hot, it's in the hundreds for a month or so at a time. When it's cold, we're covered in ice and the electricity has been knocked out for days.  I've seen the temperature drop 20 degrees in 10 minutes. I've worn Bermuda shorts one day and long underwear and a parka the next. During the summer, we spend at least one or two evenings a month sitting in the bathtub with a mattress over our heads listening to the weather guy track funnel clouds passing through the neighborhood.

I suppose my problem is that there's no weather related excitement up here. I think I'm bored weather-wise. A few minutes ago we had what passes for a hailstorm up here. The hail reached the size of BBs or bicycle wheel bearings and lasted for a full 45 seconds. Some folk, obvious visitors to the state, even opened umbrellas. The native Washingtonians never noticed. Me, I had my nose pressed against the window hoping for something at least the size of a decent golf-ball.

The only real chance at Washington weather excitement during a "sun break"

The weather up here reminds me of the kid in school who always wins the "participation" trophy.  It's like when a storm system passed through in December. The weather guys had this marathon weather alert going on TV describing 25 mile an hour wind gusts knocking down dead limbs and pup tents.

I kept expecting one of them to clap his hands and say, "Way to go, Mr. Weather. Good try!"

Of course, we can always drive up into the mountains and take the risk of being buried in an avalanche. That might at least get the old adrenaline going.

And there's always the volcano.....and the odd earthquake...........oh, and tsunamis. Other than that, it's pretty boring hear weather-wise.