Would smoky summers make you think twice about staying? (neighborhoods, movies)

[TheTimidBlueBars]

If I leave the PNW, the months on end of short, dark, overcast days that really don't play well with my SAD are gonna be way higher up the list of reasons.

[Hemlock140]

No thoughts of leaving for us, it's still the best option compared to other places that get more heat, drought, actual fires threatening homes rather than just smoke, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, locusts, cicadas. It's also a place with easy access to salt water beaches, fresh water lakes and rivers, mountains, snow activities and woods.

[flyingsaucermom]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

No thoughts of leaving for us, it's still the best option compared to other places that get more heat, drought, actual fires threatening homes rather than just smoke, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, locusts, cicadas. It's also a place with easy access to salt water beaches, fresh water lakes and rivers, mountains, snow activities and woods.

Upper midwest doesn't seem to get much smoke or hurricanes. Does it some bugs, including ticks, but I'm not the kind to go marching around the woods much anyway. Flooding can mostly be avoided too if you find maps and know the area. If you put me back in the neighborhoods I've lived in (TX, WI, MI) I would be able tell you which streets you need to avoid.

Tornados are moving east. Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas aren't as affected by them as when I lived there (TX and OK).

The biggest compromise, in my opinion, is the general discomfort. PNW is mostly comfortable for most of the year. Anything out east past the Cascades is going to involved more heat and once you get to areas that bring up the gulf moisture you'll get heat and humidity.

[MechAndy]

I like it up here.
I have no intention of leaving.
I mean where would I go to evade the smoke?
Leave the west Coast?
No way.
You can keep all those bugs, humidity, flat lands and the people who let’s say just don’t think the way I do .

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

Well, everyone remembers it the way they want to see it, unless someone has an actual chart and wants to compare. I'm not in a place to look it up... but half an inch, or even an inch, of rain in a month is really very dry. That's one fast moving thundershower.

But the weather records agree with my memory.

0.5 inches is quite a bit more than you think. Our rainiest month, November, only gets an average of 8.21 inches in an entire month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympi...hy_and_climate

1/2 (0.5) of an inch of rain – A light rain never reaches this amount, moderate rain for 1-2 hours or heavy rain for 30-45 minutes. There would be deep standing water and they would last for long periods of time.

One (1.00) inch of rain – A light moderate rain never reaches this amount, heavy rain for several hours (2-5 hours). There would be deep standing water for long periods of time.

https://weatherins.com/rain-guidelines/

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by Botev1912

Phoenix gets more rain in July and August. 1 inch of rain in a whole month is practically nothing.

Phoenix gets their rain in buckets. You have downpours and flash floods. We specialize in drizzle and gray up here. Believe me, the weather we've been seeing the last few years is not in the least typical.

[Diana Holbrook]

Originally Posted by Angry-Koala

Phoenix gets their rain in buckets. You have downpours and flash floods. We specialize in drizzle and gray up here. Believe me, the weather we've been seeing the last few years is not in the least typical.

In winter, you're right. But in summer, IF we get rain, it's usually the downpour thundershower bucket variety.

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by Botev1912

Phoenix gets more rain in July and August. 1 inch of rain in a whole month is practically nothing.

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

In winter, you're right. But in summer, IF we get rain, it's usually the downpour thundershower bucket variety.

Not true for July. The norm was a few days of gray and overcast with a bit of rain in the first one or two weeks, then it would go dry.

August would have a few days of light rain here and there, mostly at the end of the month, and some years there would be a thunderstorm that produced bit of a downpour, but never a half inch of rain.

With climate change though we're getting harder rains. We may see Midwest-style thunderstorms and downpours become the norm some day.

[Angry-Koala]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

In winter, you're right. But in summer, IF we get rain, it's usually the downpour thundershower bucket variety.

Is Rochester's weather really that different? Thunderstorms are rare here, and they're usually pretty small. Do you get guys really get downpour thundershower bucket variety storms every summer? Western Washington does do microclimates after all.

[Diana Holbrook]

Maybe. Maybe it's perspective, too. One thunderstorm in a year is pretty unusual by my definition, Koala. I also think weather is variable enough, and our memories faulty enough, that we are selective about what we remember, and how much climate change has really changed things. In our lifetime, we're likely to see a few degrees change in average climate, and with faulty selective memory and natural variables all the time, I don't think it's been enough for any of us to really notice, some just think they do.

When we had the big down pour last week before the fourth, I remember saying "wow... it never rains like this this time of year... and then I saw in my facebook memories a big downpour a year or two earlier."