dpb wrote:
charlieb wrote:
...
(if you want temperature extremes - head for Central Texas -
30 degree low, 105 degree high the next day, then hail the next
day followed by a week of cloudless 100 -107 degree days. Then
there's a frost. Wait a day or two and you've got lightening storms
you can't imagine 'til you've experienced it, with torrential
rains - blowing horizontally by 40-50 mph winds. Did I mention
the wasps and locust? I think God does all his testing for
things to get sinners' attention in Central Texas)

In general, don't disagree, but that's a pretty apt description of
anywhere on the High Plains from W TX to SK, not _just_ wherever you are
in TX...


Well I'm not from Texas but it sounds like a good place to be FROM. :-) I was
raised in Albuquerque so I know a little about the weather swings. I can
remember waking up to beautiful bright sunny skies and in a couple of hours it
would be raining so hard that we truly could not see the houses across the
street. Then two hours later everything is nice and clear, warm and DRY. I can
also remember looking out into the deserts in the west and seeing huge clouds of
blowing sand coming our way. We would have to go inside and close all the
windows (and chink them in some places) and ride out the dust storms. I hated
those. Imagine being in a house that you have had to seal against the sand and
this house has no ventilation of any kind. No Swamp cooler or even fans.

Out here in Oakley, (California's newest city about 60 miles inland from San
Francisco along the San Joaquin River) it is quite different. We are just on
the western side of the interior valley and summers are just about always clear
and hot with, at most, about a 40 degree swing in temps. Summer highs probably
would average out to be in the 100 to 105 range and the lows at night would be
from 70 to about 75 or so. The highest temp I have seen is a 117 on two or
three bank signs. Don't know how accurate the signs were but it was HOT HOT
HOT!!! Humidity be damned. 110's and 112's are not nearly rare enough. :-)
You'd think that the evenings would be great, and they would be except for
mosquitoes in the two hours surrounding sunset. Winter high temps are usually
in the fifties with occasional dips into the 40's. Winter lows rarely ever go
below freezing but we have had some mid twenties.

One of the things that gets me the most is the "delta breezes". You get up in
the morning and the weather is beautiful. Clear skies, moderate temps, and no
wind. Then about 1:00 or 1:30 you will feel a slight puff of wind on your face,
but it doesn't stop. The wind speed just keeps building until about sunset and
by that time it is 20-25 mph. As soon as the sun sets the breezes start to
diminish and within an hour they are gone.

Well anyway, It is now 1:30 in the afternoon and we have a 101 degrees outside
right now with about two and a half hours to go until the hottest part of the
day. I hafta go sit on the a/c vent with a brewski.

Wayne





While extremes are common here, too, (SW KS) along w/ all the other
niceties you mention, I'd like to see the weather record of the day that
had a 30F low w/ a 105F high... That's a TX exaggeration, I'm
thinking!

(Greatest 24 hr swing I can recall is from roughly 100F to low 40s
during spring chinooks or cold fronts.) I can't recall ever having an
actual frost on the day of or before a 100-deg buster.

Wonder if the NWS has a searchable archive for that kind of trivia???
Never actually looked for it, but would be kinda' interesting...

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