house

The National Weather Service was forecasting for cooler temperatures with some breezy, wet conditions for this evening – we got a bit more than that. I first noticed lightning, which is rare for Seattle. Then the wind picked-up. More lightning. A bit of “rattle, rattle” sounded on the roof. Nothing serious, just amusing.  I ran downstairs to let Anne know that it sounded like it might be hailing. By the time I got downstairs, hail larger than Cocoa Puffs (as much as I’d like to claim the “Cocoa Puff” metric as a “man measurement”, Anne devised it!) was banging against the side of the house. I called my neighbor nearby to suggest that this was somehow his fault; he wasn’t in much of a joking mood as his wife’s car was parked outside. It was probably the most pronounced hail storm I’ve seen in the Seattle area. Just when we thought it was over, it would start again. I’m sure it only lasted a couple of minutes, but it seemed to go on-and-on. Three hours later, much of the hail is still on the ground; it is melting, slowly. The temperature? 36 degrees – burrrrr!

Seattle is known for its lush green surroundings, cold clear water, and temperate weather... except today. Today we set a new record for the hottest date in Seattle history: 102 degrees. Our normal high temperature for this date is 76. We'll be lucky if the low temperature is 76 tonight. The challenge for people (and pets) here is the inability to escape from the heat. The vast majority of homes have no air conditioning. Even many small businesses have no air conditioning. Those that have air conditioning are discovering that their systems can't keep up with this much heat, or are succumbing to power outages as demand races upward. My dentist's office called yesterday to warn me that they have to postpone my cleaning; the power was out.

Our house has pretty good insulation, so we close it up at about 10:00 a.m. (when the outside temp begins to exceed the ambient temperature in the house) and leave it closed up while the temperature races upward. We’ll keep it closed until the temps cool back down tonight – probably after 7 p.m. Currently, it's about 82 in the house (at 3:45 p.m.) and will probably climb to 84 before the afternoon is over.

Then we’ll throw open every window and turn on the whole-house ventilation system. Our furnace includes a whole-house mode that pulls in outside air to flush radon gas, which is common in the Pacific Northwest, out of the house. In the case of warm weather, it will also pull cooler air from outside and reduce the house temperature quickly.

It’s been a year of interesting weather – far more snow storms than usual, and a “real” summer. I wonder what’s next.

We've added a new security system to our house: ice sickles. The example in the photo is over three feet long, over an inch in diameter, and very pointy. I'm sure that it will dig a pretty significant hole when it drops from the second-story roof. It is as beautiful, as it is deadly... bwah!

My car remains completely immobile; up to its hubcaps in snow. The weather forecasters are suggesting more snow tonight, then rain and snow mixed for the next few days. The Seattle area could see some substantial flooding this weekend; we should be fine since we’re 400 feet higher than most of Seattle on a gently sloping hill.