Sunny breaks
posted in Alaska |Every place I’ve lived has its own localized weather terms, and though the terms may overlap a bit–like circles on a Venn diagram–most of them are specific to the area.
Chicago weather forecasters spoke of “lake effect” snow and of “cold fronts”.
Lake Michigan was big enough that its moisture and temperature acted as a barrier to certain types of weather. On certain cloudy days, you could see the clouds scudding eastward (or northward if you were on the south side), only to hit the air right above the shoreline, at which point the clouds would stop and either dissipate or else slip northwards or southwards along the shoreline. On snowy days what would happen is that the air would absorb moisture from the lake and dump great loads of snow near the shore…you could well have days when there was a foot or two of snow near the lake and only an inch or so further west.
During the summers, there was a regular cycle of weather. You’d have a day or two of crystal clear weather, when the sky was a vivid, limpid blue and everything seemed outlined and in absolute focus. Then, you’d have a week or so where the atmosphere became more and more humid; the skies would fill with feathery clouds that sort of faded out into hazy light blue. Then would come the wretched, hot, humid days, when just walking through the streets you felt like you were swimming, the air you breathed seemed only a droplet or two away from breathing water, and not even the faintest hint of a breeze disturbed the simmering sultriness. The skies would grow cloudier and cloudier, darker and more ominous. Then small breezes and sudden gusts would sweep in from one or another direction every once in a while to break the leaden heat. But when the cold front hit–ahhh. Suddenly, the teasing breezes would turn into a sustained wind that grew, and grew, becoming more and more urgent and fierce, and then the cold front would hit and the temperature would drop 10 to 20 degrees in minutes. You could actually feel it sweeping through; there were times when you could be on one side of the street and it would be hot and sultry, cross the street, and be abruptly chilled. The wind would start tossing the huge old trees like straw, the sky would get even darker, thunder and lightning would break loose, and–often–the storm would break.
In Lubbock, the big term was “dry line”; you also had “tornado weather”, which you had in Chicago as well (remember those overlapping Venn diagrams). The two terms were intimately related; the “dry line” is an area stretching from south of Lubbock northward through Oklahoma and Kansas, an almost static area where the dry winds down from the Rockies would slam into the moist air drawn up from the Gulf of Mexico. The two combine into an almost standing line of storm fronts ranging across the Plains, and the combination is what produces lots and lots of tornadoes.
The weathermen didn’t use our term, which was “Wrath of God storms”–winds barreling eastward across New Mexico, collecting more and more dust, which showed up as a looming, tumbling brown cloud beneath dark skies to the west of town. Then it would unleash a mixture of dust and mud and torrents of rain right against your windowscreens.
In Small Mountain University Town, I learned about “red flag days” and the “monsoon”. A “red flag day” is when the relative humidity is low and the wind speed is likely to be high, a perfect combination for combustion in tinder dry forests. The “monsoon” was the summerly seasonal shift from hot and dry to cool and moist (though in the Valley of Death, it was hot and moist, and pretty horrid).
I don’t remember the specific weather terms in the Bay Area. Just lots of mudslide and flood warnings and fire danger days.
One term that is specific to this area is “ice fog”. An “ice fog” is when the air is so cold that the moisture in the air crystallizes out in the form of a fog of ice. No fun to drive in, believe me, though it does result in some awesome rime frost decorating the trees and shrubbery.
Another local term I recently heard used was “sunny breaks”, as in “mostly cloudy with sunny breaks in the late afternoon”. A “sunny break”, aside from sounding like the perfect name for a bubble-gum pop band, is apparently a teeny tiny break in the clouds so that the sun can shine through for a short while. We had sunshine last Friday and Saturday…we’ve had chilly grey days since…and then yesterday and today, we’ve had “sunny breaks”.
I’ll take what we can get. At least the pansies like this weather, and are growing quite nicely.
