So summer is almost over. How has your summer been, weather-wise?

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Here in my area of Wisconsin, it has been very dry and usually not too hot. It has been very hot last week though!! I hope it cools off tomorrow. We plan on going to the carnival, but if it's going to be 90, we will be changing our plans!

You?
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Well, from what i understand, it's been very cool in my former home of Rhinelander, but it's sure been hot, or at least hotter than what I'm used to down here in the Milwaukee suburbs.

It is currently 90 degrees at nearly 7PM, which is ridiculous. It is supposed to drop back into the seventies later this week, and then, rumor has it, into the high sixties. I can't freakin' wait!

I am NOT acclimated to this this kind of heat after 11 years in the Northwoods. Luckily, my new apartment has central AC, so I'm keeping cool, but walking to my car, or out to the dumpsters to take out the trash or recycling has meant sweating through my (short) hair before I make it back into the house.

They are calling for a wet, cold winter here. I am not concerned. From what I'm told, "cold" here is low teens, and that's a WARM winter day in my book. I'm used to single digits and subzero for most of the winter, and double digit below zero windchills.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Weather. Whether we like it or not. Let's see... scorching hot, near freezing, super dry, days of steady rain, windy, calm... in other words, the weather has been insane like me!
 

SuZir

Well-Known Member
Well, let's put it this way. Grass grew really well.

Okay, and we have an awesome year wild harvest vise. Endless amount of huge wild blueberries, good year for wild raspberries and strawberries too, so much cowberries that even if there would be none in five years , our stock would still be plenty (we needed to buy one more 18 cu feet freezer though.) It has been great mushroom summer turning to great mushroom autumn too.

Aside of that: I think there were maybe 5, but no more than 10 anyway, days we reached 75 F and one day with 80 F during the whole summer. And it rained almost every other day at least a bit. It is not that summers would ever be especially hot around here, but most people, including I, felt quite cheated with constant 60-65 F weather.

Surprisingly now that we are in September weather has first time turned surprisingly warm considering the time of the year and we are still around 55 to 60 F.
 

pasajes4

Well-Known Member
Hot with almost never ending sunshine. I become very depressed in the summer. I prefer cool, overcast, rainy weather.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Overall it was a nice summer but the last week the heat and humidity have been awful! Teaching with no air conditioning has not been fun. The kids and teachers all look wilted!

Going North-I'm from Wisconsin too but I'm not betting on the cold wet winter! There is a really big El Nino out west and usually we have warmer and less snowy winters when that happens (of course, I could be completely wrong;))!
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
WO, yes. The Old Farmer's Almanac is calling for more snow and cold than normal, and the NOAA is calling for the typical El Nino winter.

I'm inclined to go with the NOAA myself, LOL! One thing to get used to is that it apparently rains quite a bit during the winter this far south these days, which is something I'm no longer used to.

Climate change and all of that. Raining during the winter is catastrophic up where I spent the last 11 years as it means we are in the 20s and will shortly be encased in ice.

And snow down here is usually that heavy, wet stuff that we only dealt with at the beginning and end of the "season". Other than that it was the light, fluffy stuff that was fairly easy to move, though still exhausting when you consider that last year our first "real" snowfall was 14" and that was in October.

I supposed one nice thing is that one actually sees the GROUND in the winter down here. I'm used to once you get that first real snowfall, you don't see the ground again until mid-Spring when it all melts off.

Lots of stuff to get used to. My winter coat is a convertible Columbia Expedition parka that is rated to -25, and large enough to layer beneath, which I've had to do. I may have to get a LIGHTER winter coat as I suspect I'll melt in that thing down here.

I did bring the long underwear and thermal socks and all that stuff down with me. One never knows...<g>

I'm not concerned about the winters other than the amount of ice we seem to get down here, but the summers hoover. I'm far enough from the Lake to not get the cooling effect and with it all being developed around here, you get the additional heating effect from that as well.

It's amazing the difference 285 miles can make.
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
This summer's been cooler than usual, but lots of fires in the foothills, so we've had smoky air most of the time. The heat was waiting to make an appearance...it's going to be over 100, up to 106, all this week. Not looking forward to it.

We're used to temps over 100...I don't like it,though. I prefer cooler weather.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Yuck, KTM. I don't know how you handle it. Do you have proper AC, or just a swamp cooler?

We've been hot for about the last 2.5 weeks. 80s and 90s. It sucks.

I spoke to my old neighbor in Rhinelander about a month ago and he was complaining because it had been in the high sixties and low seventies and going down into the low fifties and even the high forties at night.

HE, being thin-blooded, was forced to run his furnace at night. I called the electric company down here and found out that for the second month running, I've used more electricity than my budget plan allows for. If I don't make up for it with the gas usage in the winter, i'm gonna be in a world of hurt when it comes time to reconcile my bill.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
It has been cooling off here. In July and August at mid day we were at 100 to 105 many days. It dropped down the past couple of weeks to the 90's. This week it is expected to get back up to 100 to 104.

Like some of you I like rainy, cool, misty, foggy weather. But not so much the extreme cold as I am not used to it. I welcome the winter here. It is mild. I would like it to be wetter, though. But we do (usually) get some rain.

We keep the fans on and AC on all of the time, at 79. I used to keep it at higher turn on point. Like 82 or 84. Now I choose not to suffer. We do not suffer at 79.

We are in drought. Parks and yards are brown as people decide not to water grass. There is talk that many cities are not sustainable. In the sense that given normal weather patterns there is not enough water to sustain them. (I read that the entire 20th century was an anomaly in terms of how much rain there was in my part of the country.) If people and corporations continue to use water like they have been, that is. But some experts are saying that the Southern cities can survive if we change our habits.

In the winter we almost do not use our heater. But we have a dry Mediterranean climate. We hardly ever stay below freezing. It is a treat when the grass is white when we wake up. We shut doors and put on extra layers and more blankets. I do not like the feeling of the air with a heater. It feels too dry. At first M suffered here because he comes from a city of eternal spring. Now he is used to it. We bundle up.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I always wondered why people who moved to arid climates even tried to have lawns and such when there are so many gorgeous succulents and cacti and other desert plants adapted to an arid climate that can be grown.

I've lived in temperate to boreal climates my entire life and can remember my mother slaving over a rock garden outside of Chicago. She worked very hard to keep those desert plants alive in a climate they were not at all suited for.

I keep the AC in my house at 70 in the summer as i do not tolerate heat at all well, but I keep the house at 63-65 in the winter and layer up if i'm cold.

Keeping the heat turned down that low means that i do wind up with cats under the comforter with me, but WTH, that just means it gets rather cozy at night (and purry)
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
I always wondered why people who moved to arid climates even tried to have lawns and such when there are so many gorgeous succulents and cacti and other desert plants adapted to an arid climate that can be grown.
I agree. We are gradually moving to a dry garden and are about a third there.

I am so in love with our Cacti and succulents. We have about 30 varieties massed on a table where I can see them from inside the house as I walk through the hall. And then another 40 or so in the front yard. They are so easily started by planting the babies that sprout. Home Depot sells many for $2 or $3. Some we got are up to 2'.

I had a friend that grew cacti in a West Facing window in an apartment in the SF Bay Area. I think anybody could do this. Well, maybe not in Scandinavia. But who knows?

The only issue we have with the lawn is the dogs who prefer to be outside. The grass keeps the backyard where they are so much cooler and more comfortable for them. We do not have a tree cover to shade it. I have bought 4 or 5 sun shades and will have them up for next year. Then, we are worried that the cacti would injure them. But there are other dry garden options that will not. We are working on it. Slowly.

I am envious with the kitties in the bed. A few years ago M insisted all animals needed to leave the bedroom. I am bereft.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Well, given that I'm actually mildly allergic to cats, it'd probably be a lot better if I banned 'em from the bed, but I find their presence to be comforting.

'Sides which,that's what Benadryl and NasaCort were invented for, right?

Cacti can actually tolerate a temperate climate. I visited Indiana Dunes state park many years ago, which definitely has cold, snowy winters, and was quite surprised to see prickly pear cacti growing wild there.

I am glad you are working toward a more climate-compatible landscaping scheme. I wonder if there aren't dog-friendly ground covers more suited to your environment than traditional grass? I know there are knot grasses that grow well in a more arid/sandy soil, but am not sure how well they handle heat.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
It has been hot here last 10 days or so, upper 80's to low 90's.

Today is the start of cooler temps. 80 today and going down to 70 by Friday!

This is the start of a cooling trend leading into fall. The best time of the year, I might add! Cool weather, football, camping, biking, hiking. Spring is rainy here, summers can be hot, winters are cold and overcast; fall is the only really good weather we have. I will enjoy it.

I usually manage to go south for a month or two in the winter. I have to have some sun! I hate the constant day after day of overcast, cold, no sun. So depressing. Last winter I drove south and was several hundred miles away before I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses. Because I hadn't needed them in so long!
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Fall is my favorite season as well. One of things i hated about it up North was that, while the colors were gorgeous, they only lasted a week or so before the first storm blew them right off the trees and the cold hit for the first time.

Up North, Spring weather is completely unpredictable: snow and thunderstorms, hot, cold, everything in between. Summers usually cool and either wet or dry with one week of hot weather in August. Fall was our only hope for decent weather if you didn't mind wearing a jacket or sweatshirt during the day as temps would be in the 40s and 50s, and possibly a winter coat at night as we usually got our first hard frost in September.

I usually don't put on a winter coat until temps drop into the low 30s/high 20s, but I'm acclimated to cold weather.

One thing I did notice is that when i had the oil changed in my car last week, the shop put in a heavier oil (10w30) than I had been using for winter weather (5w30),a sure sign of warmer winters as 10w30 would've turned to vaseline at Rhinelander winter temps.

They also topped up the cooling system with antifreeze good to only 25 below instead of 45 below.

I guess its a good thing I didn't have plans to visit up North during the winter, LOL!

toK
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
GN, up until two years ago, we only had a swamp cooler. Hubby finally broke down and bought window a/c units. Our house was built in 1917, before a/c and other modern conveniences, like closets.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
KTM, I don't know how you handled that heat without proper AC! Though i grew up without it until the age of 12 when my parents bought a house that had central air that we only rarely used because the cost of electricity.

Up until then, and again after i moved out on my own, it was3rd floor walkups, no air, and sweating one's "anatomy" off.
 

Californiablonde

Well-Known Member
This summer has been mild for the most part. I would say mid to upper 70’s, which is perfect for me. However, we have had a few heat waves lasting about a week or so throughout the summer. We are right smack dab in the middle of one right now, as a matter of fact. Today it’s been in the 90’s and it’s supposed to last until the weekend. I hate cold weather, but I can’t stand it when it’s too hot, either. Right now it’s too hot! We have no air conditioning in our tiny little upstairs one bedroom apartment and the heat is horrid. I, for one, am looking forward to cooler Autumn weather, although California can surprise you with heat waves at any time during the year.
 

AppleCori

Well-Known Member
I don't know how you all live without air conditioning!

I have lived in the mountains and also the great lakes region (where it rarely got over 80) and I never went without A/C. I can't sleep unless it is cool.

Hope it cools down soon!
 

Californiablonde

Well-Known Member
Apple my cheap apartment complex told us when we moved in that air conditioning wasn't necessary due to living so close to the beach. We live about 5 miles away from the ocean. The ocean breeze does NOT travel that far! We are literally drenched in sweat sitting at home during a bad heat wave. Next time I move I am going to insist on air conditioning!
 
Top