winter weather
This past month or so, the Pacific Northwest has been being hit with storm after storm to an extend that I've never actually seen before--usually we get a few windstorms in the season, the worst of which tends to miss the heavily populated regions for the most part.1 It's been fascinating to watch, day after day, as the storms come in on the weather models, the way the Olympic mountains provide shelter to Puget Sound, the way a deviation of a few miles can change an unremarkable windy day to an event which takes out power for over half a million people, as a weather system originating in southeast Asia stretches across the inaptly named Pacific to send the ocean's wrath to our coast.
The frequency of these storms notwithstanding, this is in many ways typical winter weather here.2 Though there is nearly always some amount of measurable snowfall every year, actual snow feels like an aberration here. It feels unfair that when we talk about winter weather we leave out these amazing storms, and focus only on the snow that doesn't happen very often.
We have another storm coming in tonight, and then another the night after that, and I'm always a little disappointed the storms happen when I'm not out there. I never feel more alive than in the heart of a storm.