Ulsterman in Texas

The Texas non summer climate is a basket case. Last month one day we were in tee shirts the next day we had an ice storm. Today the weather was very plesent bot tomorrow the forecast is saying 19 degrees F (-7 degrees C) with a windchill of 10 degrees F (-12 degrees C)

MsElui

Yep, I've been in Dallas about 5 weeks now and the weather had been all over the place. Today I was walking outside in a tshirt, yesterday I needed hat and scarf and winter coat.

TimFountain

Get used to it! The rapid changes in weather are the cause of all the storms. You have the hot moist southerly weather and the cold, dry northerly weather that clash regularly over a good portion of TX. A good pilot friend who lives in Dallas says it tends to go in 3 day cycles and that seems to be generally true.

When I lived in Austin we had snow on Feb 14th at 6AM and by midday it was in the 70's. I went to a Stevie Ray Vaughn concert (In Step Tour) on Sept 23rd 1989 at Zilker Park in Austin and arrived in a t-shirt and shorts in 80F & sunshine. By the end of the concert there was a howling gale and the temperature had dropped to 45F.

On the other hand here in Portland we have had almost a month of perpetually cold, damp fog!@#

SultanOfSwing

I can't help but laugh as I look at the foot or so of snow out my window here (which fell in the last 36 hours), with the forecast overnight low of -8F on the horizon. Highs next week might not get above zero.

I guess they have southern poofs in the US as well

Lord PercyPercy

Never a truer word spoken. I have to fight to keep the windows open when it drops below 70. My mother in law tries to tell me she's freezing, I wish her jaw would freeze shut.

SultanOfSwing

Below 70 ?

I keep the window open in my office down into the 20s sometimes, depending on how high they are running the heat on a given day.

scrubbedexpat097

Dear Sultan

I believe you are a menopausal woman in real life and maybe some hormones would help your hot flashes.

Love
Dr Phil x

SultanOfSwing

Shouldn't that be "Dr" Phil (emphasis on the inverted commas ...)

It's not so bad now the owner as arbitrarily put me in control of the thermostat, presumably because I like the cold as much as he does. Last year I think it was a bunch of reptiles in charge of it ...

Steerpike

The 'reptile' designation applies to me these days! In Scottsdale, in summer, I set the thermostat in my condo to 84 degrees. In winter, I have it set to 74, and wear sweat pants and a fleece jacket (in lieu of a sweater) around the house to keep me warm. When I was in the office in summer, I would sometimes go outside in the 100 degree heat to 'soak up' some heat after getting miserably cold in the air-conditioned office. I realize I'm not typical in this regard, and don't impose my requirements on others ... I had the building engineer shut off the vent to my personal office so I would not get blasted by the cold air. It would be a completely different story if it were humid ...

Lord PercyPercy

Funnily enough I hear the exact opposite here, it would be a completely different story if it were a dry heat...

Either way, to me anything above 80° makes me irritable.

SultanOfSwing

Over the years I have become accustomed to heat in the summer. I can take heat if I'm outside, in shorts, relaxing. However, in the office, in winter I don't want to be dealing with it

I'm happy at a constant 69 degrees year round inside to be honest.

scrubbedexpat091

And just a few hours north in Vancouver, BC the past month has generally been pleasant and mostly dry, did get 1 day of some snow though.

Been a weird winter here, more like spring then winter most days.

Steerpike

I've been in Northern CA (Bay Area) since Dec 12, and it has not yet rained! It's been mostly sunny and around 60 degrees every day. Quite unusual but I'm not going to complain - been hiking every day!

Yorkieabroad

It's funny, and it may just be rose tinted spectacles in the rear view mirror, but we were just talking about how the weather had changed in the 12 years we've been here....I remember when we arrived, the weather was really predictable....May-September, swimming/BBQ weather. Sept-Dec, nice fall weather, great to be outside, clear blue skies, shorts and tee shirts. January cold, maybe even cold enough to need long trousers Feb-April , same as fall, but gradually warming up until suddenly someone opened the oven door late April/ early May. Whatever time of year you were in, and whatever you were planning, you knew the weather would do what it was supposed to, with no surprises.

The last couple of years seem to have been different. Winters seem to have been arriving a little earlier, and hanging around a little longer while being colder and less predictable. Yesterday was shorts weather, tomorrow overnight is quite a bit below freezing. The oven door has been opened later in the year, and when it has arrived, Summer seems to have had more rain, often unpredicted. Nothing scientific in these observations, and no doubt someone will pull up a website showing they don't fit reality, but just our perceptions of how we have felt it.

Ulsterman in Texas

I have only been here 2 years, I'm not complaining about the cold though, I'm just making an observation about how up and down the weather seems to be.