Feeling wistful

I was reading Crazy Aunt Purl today and her comments about Tennessee having real seasons made me sorta wistful. Where I come from, we have winter (should be "cold" (50sF, 13C) and wet/damp but has just been mostly cold and vaguely miserable for the last 10 or so years), spring (should be four seasons in one day, still living up to its reputation), summer (often blasted hot, rarely miserably cold, ie only 20-25C, generally balmy nights, the odd thunderstorm, cool changes every week or 10 days) and autumn (dry start then cool crisp mornings with sunny, warm days).

We've been here in SJ for over 9 months now. We arrived on 30 December. So far we've had the weird winter here - relatively cool days (warm compared to Canada though!), once every two or three weeks it RAINS for three or so days, non-stop. Then it clears up for a week or two with heartbreakingly blue skies. It rained and rained and rained for Stitches West, only stopping in the last afternoon. I am told that is usual. The rain events wound down over March, the last shower was in April, and we had lots of blue skies. LOTS and LOTS of blue skies. I waited impatiently for it to start to warm up. It stayed around 15-20C for AGES, or so it felt.

At the end of May, it suddenly heated up. We had a few days of nearly 100F, which killed off my pea plants (and they had been bearing so well!). Then it cooled off some, thank heavens cos I was afraid I'd have three or four months of 100F temps. We had one lot of showers in late June. The locals freaked out cos it doesn't usually happen. The clouds brought dry thunderstorms to many areas, triggering a heap of wildfires and things got pretty dire for a while. The whole Bay area was smoked out. Can't imagine what it was like for those living in the areas/fighting the fires...

Since then the weather has been up and down. Mostly 80sF (high 200s/low30s C), but for a while in August I wondered if fall had come early cos the temps were around 25C for a few weeks and there were CLOUDS in the sky. Yep, white fluffy things. I'd almost forgotten what they look like.

One thing that often keeps temps bearable here is the sea breeze. The north end of the Bay calls it the Delta. I call it the sea breeze. It kicks in most days, bringing cool air from the Bay. It also means that most evenings are surprisingly cool - even if it is 38C out in the arvo, one must take a cardi or jacket out cos it will probably be quite cool in the evening, especially if the sea breeze keeps blowing.

This week? HOT! 100F or nearly. Gack. So hot that I am not getting stuff done. I've been warned that September and October can be rather warm. The average temps for SJ say 82F and 76F (28 and 25C). I'd like to know what the standard deviation on those figures is. 25C sounds marvellous but not if it is 15 one day and 35 the next... Time will tell!