Off-Topic Forum

You aren't boring me, I could talk about meteorology almost as much as I could talk about cards. I love to photograph clouds, too. I am fast approaching 1000 photos in my sky/clouds album on my website.

What you are saying here is that the mountains can be a blessing and a curse! Right?  It's the same way here in NC. I have never been to WA or OR but I know how the terrain is there (Crater Lake is one of my dream destinations and my Mom was in Spokane, WA about 2 years ago). The Appalachian Mtns. in NC are the tallest part of the chain that stretches from northern Alabama up into Maine. The mountains block most stuff coming in from the west or northwest and break it down into less-intense systems. That is pretty much what the Cascades do for your area. I can't say I am a thrill-seeker, but meteorology is another one of my hobbies and it started with sports and my interest in Astronomy. Both of those hobbies rely on clear weather and demand a constant watch and knowledge of the weather around you. Any time there is a thunderstorm in my area, I am trying to find a safe way to take videos of the lightning. Most of the severe weather here comes from "pop-up thunderstorms" that propogate from the heat of the day and get more intense as they move eastward into hotter air. I have hundreds of videos of thunderstorms here and very few produced any hail and none produced tornadoes when they were near me. I do have a story of both of those though.

When I was about 7 years old, I got caught outside when a pop-up storm got really intense very fast. It started pouring down hail about the size of golfballs while I was outside. I started running towards the house and got clocked right in the forehead by a hailstone. That was my first introduction to hail and I still haven't seen hailstones that big with my own eyes since that storm. I also survived a tornado from a "pop-up thunderstorm" in 2000. I had a party in my front yard on a springtime Sunday afternoon. We were all sitting around having fun and listening to a NASCAR race on the radio. It got really windy, but not cloudy. We all started grabbing chairs, coolers, etc. and taking them inside. Then the clouds came in and the wind got worse. Then I heard a train... that's what they say a tornado sounds like, but when you live near train tracks, that is a common occurrence! I was the only person still outside of my house and I just hit the ground and grabbed the grass. Literally! It was later confirmed by the NWS that an EF0 tornado came right down the train tracks before veering off and sending a massive tree into the first house on my dirt road. Luckily, the owner was out of town that day, but I was less than 100 yards from the tornado when it came through. If my car hadn't been b/t me and the tornado's approach direction, those winds would have probably lifted me off the ground and into the trees. That is the scariest thing I have ever experienced and I slid a car sideways into a tree at over 80 MPH when I was 16!!! Weather can be a beast sometimes.

I heard you have two seasons...Winter and July 15th.

Yup your right .... OH SO right ...... ;)

Actually make it July 1st ..... after all it IS our 150th birthday this year. =D

 Reminds me of a quote from an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Robin (a Canadian) says, "In Canada, summer is really just the last 2 weeks of July.". Sounds like you guys are counting summer early or she's counting summer late!