november

by Eli

this post is probably more for the non-seattle residents, but i think that we will all enjoy it’s succinctity. the november weather in seattle has been some of the craziest weather that seattle has EVER SEEN (in recorded history at least). sure the summers are beautiful, and they’ve been record breakingly beautiful ever since we got here, but the winters have been just as record breaking.

last winter there was a record of like 30 days a row that it rained, and that record was just part of a bigger record: over the span of 50 days, it rained 48. absolutely crazy. this past summer was awesome and amazing though. spring had it’s moments, but it was still a little chilly. then all of a sudden on june 23rd it turned into summer. like, the day before it wasn’t summer and then all of a sudden it was, and from there on out it was absolutely beautiful until about a month ago.

that’s when the shit hit the fan.

november has seriously been one of the craziest months in seattle weather history. i know i just said that, but i needed to say it again. as of right now, november has seen 15.26 inches of precipitation and the record is 15.33 inches. that record was recorded back in december of fucking 1933! does that blow your mind? we are about .07 inches away from the most precipitous months in over 70 years! i don’t know the details, but i think it has rained just about every day this month. to put this all in perspective, seattle usually gets about 38 inches of a rain in an entire year. we’ve almost had HALF of the rain we normally get in an entire year in ONE month.

then like 2 days ago it started snowing. seattle has certainly seen it’s fair share of snow, but some parts of the state got as much as 2 feet. we got about 6 inches in the seattle area, but the temperature is staying low. right now it’s a comfy 20 degrees outside; plenty cold enough to keep the roads icy. my cousin, gavin, got in a pretty nasty car wreck on his way down south and totaled his car; luckily, he’s ok.

but when you put things in perspective, seattle over-reacts quite a bit. there really wasn’t that much snow and everyone was freaking out. brandon and i were let go at work 15 minutes early last night, the call center didn’t open until 10am this morning (normally 6am), and we were let go 3 hours early tonight because of the weather. there were all these reports about how horrible the roads were going to be this morning, but brandon and i zipped to work on virtually ice-free roads. the same was the case on the way home.

if you thought that seattlites would be prepared for rain, you’d be wrong. if you thought they would be prepared for snow, you’d never think a stupider thought ever again.

UPDATE: november 2006 is the wettest month in seattle history.