We moved here eight years ago and the first words we heard were, “This is very unusual weather.” In all those eight years not a day has gone by that we have not run into someone saying, “This is very unusual weather.” It took awhile to realize that the usual weather in our valley is unusual, not occasionally but always. I am going to be stunned, awed, amazed and struck dumb the day someone says to me, “Now this is our usual weather.” Today has been another of those unusual days. We started off the morning in rain with cool breezes. I left on a bike ride in a long-sleeve tee shirt with my rain jacket in my saddle bag. Within an hour I was overly warm in bright sunshine. By mid-afternoon I was in shorts, but before sunset back in my long sleeve tee with the breeze picking up and rain clouds over the mountains menacing a good storm. It may be weird weather, but we don’t have tornadoes, hurricanes or earthquakes. Windstorms, often with a lot of dust, and forest and range fires are our biggest threats. Other than that, I cannot think of a better temperate climate that the unusual weather of our valley.
My own comment to this post. It\’s June 11 and time for our hot, dry season to begin. Instead it\’s been cool and rainy. Yesterday the nearby mountains got 3 inches of snow up on top and a solid dusting almost down to the valley floor. We have very unusual weather.