Midwest vs. West Coast: Round 1

Did any of you know that I'm a weather fanatic? Provided I have internet access, I check weather.com compulsively. I get overly excited about watching the bright spots of green shape-shift across the map in staggered steps, anticipating when the rain is going to reach me.

One of my favorite movies of all times is "Twister"; and for that brief time in fifth grade, I wanted nothing more than to be a storm chaser. To this day, I love watching clouds roll across the sky in their infinite patterns and variations. Perhaps this explains the allure of the open road.

I've realized, weather is one of the few things left in our lives that we have absolute no control over. Think about it, we can barely predict tomorrow's conditions and even if we realize a hurricane is going to hit, there's nothing we can to do change its path. We dress accordingly, we move our picnic indoors, we evacuate. We adjust our lives accordingly and I kinda like that submission to forces greater than ourselves. Plus, it keeps life exciting. Which leads me to the title.

In the four months I spent in Washington, I did not experience a single thunderstorm. I didn't realize how much I've missed them until I returned home recently (most of the drive through Michigan was filled with rain. Which was good; my car had layers of bugs caked on the grill). Just outside my bedroom window, the first floor juts out so that whenever it rains, I can fall asleep to the blessed sounds of raindrops on a roof and thunder in the distance. After experiencing this all my childhood, obviously I have positive connotations with storms. Seattle's summers are maybe too perfect. During an eight week period, it rained only once; every other day was filled with blue skies, low humidity, and a comfortable high of 75 degrees. (Tough life, I know).

Honestly, I can go on and on about weather, but I'm getting tired. And I'm sure it's all so thrilling too. (one of the great skills of an interpreter is that you can talk for hours about nothing).

Right now, as I sit in a somewhat sticky leather chair due to the humidity, listening to the cicadas, it just feels like it's going to rain soon. And according to weather.com, at 4am, we're going to have Isolated T-storms (30% chance), a high of 64 degrees, 93% humidity, and winds from the SSE at 4mph. So in this round of Midwest vs. West Coast, the former wins...lightning fast.

Any favorite thunderstorm experiences? Mine: watching a storm race across the New Mexican desert, feeling the cool burst of air that precedes the rain and smelling a mix of sage and wet red earth. Summer 2001, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.