Thursday, June 4, 2009

Rain, Los Angeles, June... wait, June?

In Los Angeles we're used to a weather condition called June Gloom. Despite the depressing name most of us are glad for it. Summers here can be pretty hot and the sun unrelenting in July, August, and September. That's fire season, which we've come to dread. But just after things start to get sunny in May the weather pattern changes and we got one more month of cloud cover and fog from the Pacific - what they call "on shore flow" before the winds change and we start to get hot air blowing in from the eastern deserts ("Santa Ana conditions"). June Gloom feels like an extra, late-arriving, gift of Spring. The lawns stay green. The AC stays off. Summer can wait.

Yesterday the gloom actually turned into rain. That was an unexpected pleasure. And they say we might get more rain today or tomorrow. Let it come. It's actually normal to get about one day in June each year with rain above a tenth of an inch. But especially in a year when statewide precipitation has been only 80% of normal, and below normal now for the third year in a row, it's nice to get a little wet.

1 comment:

Eve said...

My daughter still enjoys walking in the rain, where I would run and hide. Makes me look at rain and wonder...for a minute longer.