Peace Tree Farm

Beastly

OK, so I won’t gloat about our lovely, pleasant Northwest summers. At least, not for a little while.

This is my third summer in Seattle, and it’s far different from the last two. In 2001, I don’t think I slept more than a couple of nights without needing my blanket and quilt; I’m certain that there was never a blanketless night all that summer. I’m told that that was a cool summer, though it wasn’t all that extreme. Last year was pretty much a standard summer, with a couple of days near 90 degrees but always cool, comfortable nights. I used the quilt most nights, but there were more than just a few where the thin blanket was plenty.

This year ... well, the last week or so has been really, really hot. According to the National Weather Service at Boeing Field, it reached 93 degrees today, same as yesterday’s high. It was “only” 88 on Monday. More remarkably, it doesn’t cool off overnight. Last night’s low was 68 degrees! Though it got to 62 each of the previous two nights, all of those reports are quite deceiving, as the lows were actually recorded at around 5am, just before sunrise. At normal bedtime, we’ve been faced with 80(!), 75, and 73 the last three nights.

That’s remarkably, stiflingly hot up here, where almost nobody has air conditioning. It’s been all but impossible to sleep, what with the sultry stillness. This is not a normal situation at all in these parts. Everyone’s cranky. Every day’s forecast seems to indicate that we’ll soon return to normal patterns—on a typical July 30, Seattle’s high temp is 76 and the low is 57 degrees—but it looks like tomorrow will continue to be too hot, with a mid-80s high.

I know, I know, I’ve gotten soft here in Seattle. These temps are nothing to sneeze at in the rest of the country. But they’re so very out of character—yesterday and today were all time record highs for the date—that it’s really irksome.

Posted by N in Seattle on 07/30 at 06:20 PM