brentcu

I do not come from Seattle, rather I grew up in London and Sydney. My childhood memories of London weather are of standing at a bus stop (in a queue) in cold and wet conditions. Summer holidays from school could get hot, but it would also rain a fair bit. The weather was depressing a lot of the time.

When we moved to Sydney it was warmer all year round and when it rained, you’d get soaked in a short time. No sprinking showers there. Summers could get truly hot. Old Sydney houses were not well built for the heat and were not insulated. Summer could get too uncomfortable when you were trying to sleep and it was still over 30 degrees Celcius (86 Fahrenheit).

Seattle has beautiful warm dry summers with long daylight hours. Summer here is just fantastic, although there’s a joke that “Summer is my favourite week in Seattle.” Winter is damp – there are just so many wet days in December, January and February. This keeps the kids inside for too long. For cyclists it isn’t too bad, it never rains that heavily, just for a long time.

The worst thing about Seattle weather is that there are too many days where the kids play inside. The cold temperatures last too late into the year. This morning my son is playing outside and it reads 45 Fahrenheit (about 7 Celsius) on our fancy thermometer. It is sad that it stays cold in May. I’d rather the kids were outside causing mayhem.

And just to prove me wrong our kids have developed the toughness to go outside in this weather in just their underpants, while I’m freezing in three layers.