Some people look for conflict wherever they go. Often, it's as easy as turning on the latest cable channel's "competition" - "America's Next Top Fast Food Cashier" or "There's a New Big Dog At The Mortician's"...it seems we find ways to entertain ourselves with a constant barrage of contrived crap, guaranteed to stir emotions in the audience.
Well, I like it real. I like drama, to experience the conflicts of life and their very real consequences. That's why I like weather.
Weather watching and storm chasing are pastimes I learned to enjoy when I was very young - at first, it a matter of learning which clouds were which, or what happened if the wind blew from a certain direction. Once those tidbits were arranged in my head with other weather factors, I would do things like predict tornados in California, or whether conditions were good, bad or awesome for thunderstorm building.
That's why I enjoyed this weekend so much. It was warm, then cold; windy, then calm; dumping buckets of rain followed by a dryout followed by a thunderstorm. There was natural drama, barely predictable and full of surprises all over the Valley. Perched in my car on Patterson Pass this afternoon, I watched heavy shower after heavy shower all over the San Joaquin Valley, with bright fingers of lightning so distant I never heard the thunder. As I sat there, I watched the air temp fall from 57 to 50 in 45 minutes, and immediately drove into the hills south of town to check for snowflakes.
As it turned out, it was a mere 38 at 2500' at 5PM, so the showers were still wet, not icy. I got as far as the Santa Clara County line on Mines Road, disappointed that I couldn't spend the night. It surely will freeze up there tonight, so if it clears for a brief time in the morning, look south to see a white dusting of Rose Peak and on the highest points of the Diablos. I could imagine being tucked tightly in my backpacking tent with its sturdy weather proofing, inside my wonderful down sleeping bag, listening to the soft patter of snow gathering on the seat of my chair. Drama. Yes, that's my kind of drama!
But even a casual TV fan can tell you how a story's going to work out - who's to win, who's to get voted off the island; which characters are the heavies, or the diplomats, or the dummies....but with weather, the script changes virtually every day. And if you, like me, SEEK extremes, then we'll never get bored. Weather, despite the TV "meteorologists" forecasts, is a lot like most people - there isn't really a good or a bad, just a lot of differences or idiosyncracies to try to contend with. I recall a trip with Gina to Death Valley in May a few years ago, where we got caught with our warm - weather gear and damn near froze on the valley floor our first night there...in May. In MAY. Death Valley. Death FREAKING Valley! Who'sa thunk one could freeze to death in DV in May? Drama, I tell you, better than even Al Hitchcock could conjure.
A weekend of getting up close and personal with our weather, that's what it was. The more extreme the forecast, the more I smile. Given a choice of a Bowl game or a violent storm, guess what I'll be watching? Soon we'll be wondering where the rain went, and are we heading into a drought? Wait and see...the story's being written somewhere out in the South Pacific as we speak, so tune in again tomorrow....turn off the TV - I just love this weather!
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