Re: Happy New Year's

Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Mon, 28 Dec 1998 09:45:26 -0500

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> EvMick@aol.com writes:
>
> > In a message dated 12/26/98 5:50:46 PM Central Standard Time,
> > damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au writes:
> > > -- *winter* season? Are you mad? It's blazingly hot! 40-odd degrees
> > > Celsius most days! This is *December*, the early stretch of summer.
> > > February will be a nightmare of heat stroke and UVA.
> >
> > ahh....if only there were a way to take the best of both hemispheres (summer)
> > and experience only that....and avoid the dread and dreary (not to mention
> > COLD) winter.
>
> I second that. Right now I'm in Kalix, at the northernmost tip of the
> Gulf of Bothnia (near the swedish-finnish border). The day is around
> four hours long, and today it was so cloudy that at noon it was still
> a blue-tinted dusk. Fortunately it is unseasonally warm, just -10
> degrees celsius (last week it was -27).
>
> Of course, this is why I want to live in an O'Neill colony with
> controlled climate and length of day. That's the way of avoiding the
> problems of living on a spheroid with uncontrolled axial tilt :-)

One of the reasons why I loved living in Seattle. In the 8 years I was living in that area, it never got hotter than 92 or colder than 10 deg. We only had one relatively dry summer, but I also never recall any hot/humid days like those that are so frequent here on the east coast. Snow only fell in the city every one in three years, while 45 minutes up the highway there was 10-20 feet of snow at some great ski areas. The claim that it rains 'all the time' in Seattle is mostly a rumor created by Californians (What the hell do they know about rain anyways???), but maintained and spread by Seattle natives to keep people from moving there. As I recall, there are as many rainy days in Seattle as in New York City. The only difference I could see is that a rain storm that took 30 minutes to a couple hours in NY could take all day long to drop as much or less rain in Seattle.

Looking at the global weather patterns, wind, wave and tide topographical maps, its apparent that the Pacific Northwest exists in a definite bubble of serenity compared to elsewhere.

Mike Lorrey