Do Wild Fluctuations In the Weather, Like Our Spring, Annoy You? (climate, snowing)
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Intro
I originally posted about this in the US forums (the states), because in Texas our spring has been prone to continuing "winter flashbacks" in which our temperatures more resemble January than April. In our case, it doesn't mean snow in May, it means temps in the 50s when it's supposed to be in the 70s, etc.
One of the main most annoying things to me, something that bugs me so much it can affect my entire mood for an entire period of time, as in for a couple of days or even longer, is weather that doesn't respect the norms for the time & place in which this is happening. Examples: days where it's warm enough to wear shorts during Christmas anywhere other than Miami or the Bahamas, 3 inches of rain in a month where it's supposed to rain 7 followed by it raining twice as much the next month (versus just raining the normal amount all along), and most of all--springtime being all over the place, like early summer one day, like January the next--sometimes within the same day.
Am I the only one that finds this EXTREMELY annoying, enough to want to hop on a plane and not return home until it quits? You just feel like yelling WAKE THE HELL UP!!! IT'S NOT WINTER ANY FREAKING MORE!!!! GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS!!!!
In fact, as I have very few if any neighbors to speak of, and thus can yell if I want to without repercussions, I often-times do exactly that out of frustration.
What This Has to Do With Me
I guess I learned wrong, but I always learned that winter was when it was going to be cold, summer was when it was going to be hot, fall was when it gradually went from being hot to cold (with it being "cool" much of that time), and spring was when winter-time ended and it was now warm from now on, but not HOT yet. (Naturally what those numbers look like varies by region, upstate NY has a colder winter than southern GA for instance, but the changes were the same.)
Where it pertains to this: I am a warm weather person. I like shooting hoops while wearing only a pair of shorts & shoes while the WARM sun glistens on my skin. I like being in the water. I like looking around and seeing women wearing tank tops, swimsuits and mini dresses. (I don't bother anyone, but that the scenery is around is certainly nice to me.) I like sunshine to cheer up and brighten up things. That is what I love.
I tolerate winter, but not much else. I look at it as "down time" for maintenance, as in the cold helps kill off nuisance insects, the pool is down so the equipment gets a rest & the ground doesn't always have to bear the weight, the air conditioners don't have to run for awhile, the car's engine doesn't have heat stress for awhile, my skin is covered for awhile because after awhile maybe too much sun can mean skin cancer, etc--that kind of thing. I'm fine with that. It's winter-time--unless you live in Key West or the Bahamas etc, winter is going to be COLD (again, colder in some places than others). It makes sense.
But once spring is here, I'm ready for it to be WARM again, and to be that way FOR GOOD, as in no more cold WHATSOEVER until November. None, zero, zip, zilch, not even a SPECK of cold in the least. Winter is OVER now.
Things Belong In Their Proper Place
This fits me as a person, too. I like things in their proper place. The rhetorical question of "do you consider the glass half-empty or half-full," my reply: "I just want to know how many ounces it holds." If I work at a job that has me on an 8-5 schedule, I don't want them asking me to stay late, because the schedule says 8-5 and that should mean something. Plan around that reality, don't ask me to consider the schedule a joke, basically. I insist on proper spelling & punctuation even in the text messages I send. All of the clocks in my house are set to the same time. Even in pre-digital days, my photos were always sorted in the order they were taken, oldest to newest, no exceptions ever. I detest things such as streets where the names change as you travel down them, houses & businesses not having the street numbers large to where you can see them, anything that promotes chaos & disorder.
If spring-time keeps being cold, it disrupts my sense of order and things making sense. I described it this way: it's like that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" where George Bailey is being shown the "you were never born alternate reality." Nothing is normal, everything is all different. Throughout, he is so taken aback by it, panicking, and he is screaming "TAKE ME BACK!!!"
Also, frankly, I feel like I'm being robbed of warm weather I would otherwise be having, warm weather I DESERVE because I just tolerated the winter but that time is now over, and I don't appreciate being "robbed" that way.
Am I The Only One?
So you can imagine how disgusted I have been with this year's spring, which has been one of the most ridiculous farces I have ever seen.
Does that sort of weather bother any of you (even if not quite this much), or do you just figure it's the "going rate" and not some sort of freak-thing, or do you in fact embrace it as "variety" etc? I'm just curious.
I hate when it gets colder and we have single figure highs in late April/May and also air frosts in late April/May.
I find variation interesting though as long as it evens out to average or warmer-than-average temperatures. I hate sustained below average crap the most.
England had has below average temperatures since last April, with only about 3 weeks above average temps since then at all.
Having 22C last Thursday and 12C on Friday was annoying enough, having interior US fluctuations would drive me absolutely crazy (would be interesting to experience though).
I like to have fluctuations, since it adds variety and interest to my weather experience. Constant warmth gets old fast . Also, to have cold and snow interrupt warmth and to have snow fall on warm ground and everything is a different experience than the winter scenario of constant cold and snow. As for the variation, I'd prefer for the fluctuations to go from 60F to 10F rather than 90F to 40F; unless it was summer, in which case the 40F would be a nice break, but for summer I'd prefer 50-80F for highs. 90F is just too hot.
As for the seasons, the way I've always gotten it was that winter featured consistent cold with a snowpack, summer featured consistent heat, and spring and autumn were transition seasons. In the case of spring both winter-like and summer-like conditions are seen with summer-like weather increasing in frequency and intensity, and winter-like weather decreasing in frequency and intensity, until June hits and true summer begins. This is what it's "supposed" to be like, but in practice the intensity and duration of summer and winter varied but the basic concept did not (until you hit the tropics anyway).
As for West Texas (I'm assuming you're in the western part of the state?) the temperatures have been in the 80's and 90's most of the time since April, with occasional interruptions, some of them being quite severe (like 90's one day and 40's the next). Still, in Lubbock 25 out of 30 days in April had highs above 60F, which in my view does not constitute a lack of warmth.
I like to have fluctuations, since it adds variety and interest to my weather experience. Constant warmth gets old fast.
Oh yes, that is what I hear from others, & I respectfully (I hope my tone is such) could not disagree more. Constant ups & downs are the bane of my existence. Anything that is "stock market-esque" is very annoying, perhaps even evil frankly. It's like having a girlfriend or wife who changes her mind too much and is too up & down with her moods, at such a time you'd KILL for a woman who isn't so all over the map, because living with someone that wild & crazy is a nightmare. At first, a woman who is spontaneous and adventurous and "full of surprises" gets you going, it gets you excited--but eventually, it catches up to you and is a huge headache, and you look for a more sane woman who isn't so all over the place and is a bit more settled.
To me. weather that is all over the map is a nightmare. I like the comfort of consistency--the light switches are where you expect them, your friends haven't changed and are still the same 30 years later, the stores are in the same place and sell the same products. I love how one of my favorite aunts has lived in the same place my entire life (I'm 44) and has the same phone number now they did when I was a child. It isn't exaggerating much to say that my very mental sanity is DEPENDENT on such. If I want variety, I'll ASK for it, but don't you DARE ram it down my throat or I will get very irritated, or even irate.
I have said I even wished I could take over the weather, and the main thing I would do--end all wild fluctuations, the temperatures would ALWAYS be only 3-4 degrees apart from the norm, ALWAYS, and the first person who said "this weather is boring," I'd put them on a deserted island where it was 90F and 40F within SECONDS of each other, all day for 3-4 weeks day & night, one day the sun would rise at 6 a.m. and set by noon and not rise again for 4 solid days, and then when it did it would not get dark for a month, it would be sunny one minute & raining or snowing the next, ice one minute and rain the next--and I would yell out loud from the skies "is that 'exciting' enough for you?"
Because, to me, 85 one day and 63 the next is that unsettling, or at least irritating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patricius Maximus
As for West Texas (I'm assuming you're in the western part of the state?) the temperatures have been in the 80's and 90's most of the time since April, with occasional interruptions, some of them being quite severe (like 90's one day and 40's the next). Still, in Lubbock 25 out of 30 days in April had highs above 60F, which in my view does not constitute a lack of warmth.
No I am in the EASTERN part of Texas. The way it's been--our norms are around 78'F. It will do that for maybe 3 days, then crash down to the 50s or 60s for a high for nearly a week before FINALLY recovering, and then you'll have 3 days where it's like 85 and then after 3 days, WHAM!, it barely gets up to 60.
To me, if the normal high on April 1st is 73 and the normal on April 30th is 78, it should gradually rise from 73 to 78 throughout the month, with not one single day of it being above 80 or one single day of it being below 70. Ever, and I mean EVER. Even 1 day out of 30 trillion where it deviated by, say 15 degrees, would absolutely never ever happen. EVER.
Yes, I absolutely mean it. I am as serious as I've ever been.
When you mentioned spring/fall being "transitional periods," that's what bothers me--the transition is too all over the place. If, say, the first day of spring was 63 and it gradually rose up to 80 by mid-May or so, that would be fine. I don't expect it to be 50 the day before spring & 80 the next day. But for it to range from 55-85 for daytime and 35-65 for nighttime is just too crazy and wild. That sort of thing belongs on the roller coasters, and in fact I don't like real roller coasters either.
Annoy me? No. Worry me? Yes. I've never seen flooding in the 20+ years we've lived here like I did two weeks ago. Our house escaped the destruction but part of our town was under water for days. It was 70 degrees with torrential rains and 30's with snow flurries the next day. Welcome to the new norm.
Wild temperature fluctuations annoy me, and that is coming from an Australian poster. My climate most resembles Northern Florida (humid subtropical). We are lucky here as the temperature fluctuations you experience are almost non existent to that degree.
Most of our day to day variation occurs in spring (Sep, Oct, Nov in our case), whereas late autumn and winter tends to see the lowest fluctuations.
Occasionally we get 'southerly changes' which can drop the temperature somewhat, but again in this part of Australia, the effects are less significant.
I used to live in Sydney and many a day or week could be ruined by these southerly changes (that I do not miss here).
Climate tables on Wikipedia and most sites only give high level information, that is, min, max, rainfall, and possibly sunshine totals. Ideally I would like to see some measure of variation, both across the month (standard deviation of maximums for example) as well as day-to-day variation to provide a measure of stability.
My preferences are for boring, predictable weather - the type where you do not have to think or plan too much what you need to wear that day (it should correspond to the time of the year). Having said that, occasionally I don't mind the odd interesting weather event e.g. a good lightning display.
Fluctuations are par for the course here. Any spring day would be capable of having mid winter temps/conditions. It doesn't last though, so it doesn't really bother me.
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. Also, to have cold and snow interrupt warmth and to have snow fall on warm ground and everything is a different experience than the winter scenario of constant cold and snow. As for the variation, I'd prefer for the fluctuations to go from 60F to 10F rather than 90F to 40F; unless it was summer, in which case the 40F would be a nice break, but for summer I'd prefer 50-80F for highs. 90F is just too hot.
