dailyprompt-1944

WDP — Cold Weather

Fandango4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
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Generally speaking, I prefer cold weather to hot weather. When the weather is cold, you can dress for it — jackets, scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. — to keep warm. But in the summer, when it’s really hot and muggy, short of staying inside an air conditioned building, there’s not much you can do to escape the heat and humidity. Sure, you can strip naked, but you’d be likely to get arrested for doing so in most places outside of your home.

That doesn’t mean I like extreme cold, either. I lived in Chicago for three years and when the temperatures dipped down to forty degrees below zero before windchill, which they did a few times while I lived there, I didn’t like that one bit.

Before we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, my wife and I lived in Massachusetts, where the winters were frigid and snowy, which was one of the factors that led us to move all the way across the country.

Here, winters are cool, but not really cold. Rarely does the temperature where we live dip below freezing. Unfortunately, our summers on the East Bay can get very hot — 100°F or more multiple times — between mid-June and mid-September.

That explains my being naked in my house (and sometimes in my backyard) in the summer. No peeking!

WDP — Weather Extremes

Fandango11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?
View all responses

One of the reasons my wife and I moved from New England to San Francisco in 2010 was because of the weather. New England summers are hot and muggy. New England winters are frigid and snowy. In contrast, San Francisco summers are relatively cool and dry, and San Francisco winters can be wet, but they are mild. Snow in the city of San Francisco is almost unheard of.

We no longer live in San Francisco. In 2020 we moved to the East Bay to a town about 35 miles east of San Francisco. It’s climate, though, is very different from San Francisco’s. The summers here are hot, hot, hot. I’m talking about a lot of days at or above 100°F. Fortunately, it’s typically a dry heat, so it’s not as oppressive as it is back east, when the humidity is close to 100%. The winters here are colder than in San Francisco, but not nearly as cold as they are in New England. It rarely gets below freezing (32°F) where we live.

Okay, yeah, I hear you. I haven’t answered the question. So let me do that. I prefer cold weather to hot weather. When the weather is cold, you can dress for it — jackets, scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. — to keep warm. But in the summer, when it’s really hot and muggy, short of staying inside an air conditioned building, there’s not much you can do to escape the heat and humidity. Sure, can strip naked, but you’d be likely to get arrested for doing so in most places.

Of course if I lived in the upper Midwest, I might have a different answer. I lived in Chicago for three years and when the temperatures dipped down to forty below zero before windchill, which they did a few times while I lived there, I didn’t like that one bit.

But I’m okay with the snowless, relatively mild winters here in the coastal regions of Northern California.