Variation in local climate

[mtbc]

Our gym's indoor swimming pool was again busy early this morning and mst3kmoxie suggested that this coincides with seasonal improvement in weather. I was surprised as I hadn't noticed significant change in the weather in my time here and I realized that just because I find the local climate always temperate doesn't mean that locals think likewise.

Wikipedia tells me that Columbus, OH, where I worked for many years, has a recorded temperature range from -30°C to over 40°C and is subject to severe weather. Whereas, around here, from Perth to Dundee, it never gets anywhere near -20°C and rarely over 30°C (Dundee itself never has). The milder temperatures and lack of severe weather mean that it never seems very forbidding to me, but perhaps it might to others?

I enjoy the more interesting weather: I miss everything from the freezing rain to the lightning storms. In Boston my children were able to excavate a horizontal tunnel through the snow in our front yard. The weather's certainly one of the reasons I want to return to the US. Though, a colleague just went from here to Georgia and their child has already required medical treatment for heatstroke: I certainly don't plan to live quite that far southeast. In the meantime, my winter gloves and summer shorts have remained largely unused since we moved to Perthshire and I also no longer carry much in the way of emergency kit in my car's trunkboot.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

One of the things that appeals to me about the UK is how… moderate it is, in terms of physical geography. I once experienced an earthquake and it felt like a heavy lorry going past. We have occasional tragic floods which make the news but are three orders of magnitude less lethal than the ones in Bangladesh. In twenty years, my house has experienced a temperature gamut of 50°C. People go to gawp at or surf the Severn Bore, which has rarely reached heights of almost 3m and killed approximately zero times as many people as tsunamis do. Volcanic activity: none. Highest mountain: if you want to climb it, better allow a whole day, wear sensible shoes and pack a coat. Desert: yes, technically, but it's tiny and most people are more scared of the nuclear power station than the complete lack of endless sand dunes. Avalanches: eight people died 180 years ago. Landslides: becoming an infrastructural hassle. Dangerous animals: stampeding cows. Dangerous plants: uh… stinging nettles? Epidemic diseases: a bit of a sniffle.

It's easy to take this for granted, but I'm dimly aware there'd be something to upset and alarm me almost anywhere else in the world.

[mtbc]

Good points. I wonder how well you would get used to dangers once they became more familiar.

On the one hand, perhaps because of past depression and perhaps a touch of Total Perspective Vortex, I fear death far less than I did. On the other, in some ways I am indeed naturally cautious (e.g., acting to reduce more conventional health risks) and, now I have children, doubly so because I have to try to stay usefully alive for them: I now actually go to the tornado shelter instead of hoping for an exciting spectacle.

Some people are more genetically wired to be novelty-seeking: perhaps that's part of it. After all, having grown up in England, I did move to Ohio immediately upon graduation. I would have been making more changes in my life if I didn't have to ongoingly earn enough to support my family.

There are still some concerns that bother me. For instance, I didn't like moving to Boston from the point of view of it being a plausible target for terrorist attack; I am similarly not about to move to near the San Andreas Fault. Risks that I can minimize without much compromising my appetite for interesting times that make me feel more alive and engaged do get consequential note: for example, in taking a flight from Edinburgh tomorrow morning, I do have my home address and telephone number affixed to my bag via a hardy luggage tag, and the work laptop in carry-on I backed up this morning to storage that is itself backed up.