A Topic Completely Worthless To Talk About

I’m tired of living in Seattle.

I thought you lived in Utah?

I do. I’m so sick of this rain.

That was a conversation a friend had on his facebook wall. I hadn’t noticed. But, now that he mentioned it, I guess it has been raining for a while. It was drizzling and 45 degrees today in Pleasant Grove.

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.

I grew up in Seattle. Winters were months an months of gray.

It rains 9 months out of the year in Seattle.
– Sleepless In Seattle

The rain in Seattle is slightly over exaggerated. Oh, it rains plenty, that’s for sure. During one year when I was living there we broke a record: 105 days in a row with rain. That’s the official story.

Sounds dreary, huh?

Here’s the local’s take on it Sure, it rained every day for 105 days. It would rain in the morning and typically clear up by noon. Afternoons were typically lovely with scattered clouds, sunshine and highs in the 50’s.

Still, Seattle is the location that coined the terms “black ice” and SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder.)

Utah weather and Seattle weather could not be more different. Where they are wet, we are dry. Where they are coastal, we are 4000 feet in elevation. Where they are forested, we are desert.

It took me nearly ten years to learn to appreciate Utah’s beauty, to learn to love the desert and get used to the dry.

Not only is Utah a desert, but like much of the West, we’ve had a drought for eight out of the last ten years. This year is not a drought year.

We are far beyond a drought. In Utah we have three precipitation measures in Utah, rainfall, ground water and snowpack. Our groundwater is still low because we are just coming out of the winter. But, we can measure the snowpack, and we do.

This year our snowpack is anywhere from 134% – 247%. The rain that my friend was complaining out was dropping snow in the mountains. We may not be able to do anything about the weather, but that doesn’t stop those of us in Utah from discussing it.

In fact, we have two topics when it comes to weather. Our first topic is drought. We worry about water and snow all the time. And then, when we have a year like this year, we can finally stop talking about the drought.

The weather will clear up this week. By Friday the high temperature is projected to be in the 70’s. That will be just in time to start talking about our second favorite weather topic. . .flooding.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

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