a preoccupation with the weather. Younger people seem to separate
weather into two categories: good and bad. Good weather is anything
suitable for play; sunshine if you want to participate in outdoors
sports such as baseball or swimming and snow if you are desirous of
skiing or sledding. Bad weather is that which precludes outside
activities making work: house, office or school, a viable alternative.
We older individuals find more nuances to weather. For those of us
both aging and rural weather is a major concern and subject for
discussion. I'm in that group now. My emails to friends contain a
summery of the expected or recent meteorological conditions. Chats
with neighbors contain comments on and opinions about this year's
climate relative to that of past years. We mull over the signs of
seasonal change like scribes examining a rare manuscript. Were the
trees blooming sooner in '08? Will there be drought in '09? Did the
termites fly earlier last fall? Is there more hail, less wind, or
heavier frost?
Living on the Oregon coast brings the added dimension of fascination
with rain. Precipitation here has so much more character than where I
came from in California. In California it was either raining or not.
Usually not. In Oregon where I am now rain is a personality. Winter
rain is generally horizontal and from the south. A spring rain can be
vertical, which is unusual enough to warrant notice. We strain to
find ways to describe a particular speed, volume and ferocity of
wetness: mist, drizzle, sprinkle, shower, downpour, torrent, deluge,
barrage, inundation. We add to these the variety of the hail, from
slush to pellet size, sleet to gropple. Then we include the wind for
which the terms get somewhat too profane to describe. Use your
imagination and a sailor's vocabulary. The sum of a rain portrayal
never quite conveys it but we Northwetians give it a go. If our
characterizations falls short we get plenty of opportunity for a
retry at this time of year. The conditions change from moment to
moment and cloud to cloud.
Now that I think about it we don't have nearly as much to say about
warm sunny weather. Could be a lack of familiarity. Could be we are
stunned silent. Or maybe we are just too weak with relief.
1 comments:
Eugene naturally gets less wind. I would say that our winter rain is usually from the north or west, rarely from the south.
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