I am a native of Arizona, but have been away for a long time.
I lived in California for six years in the city of Antioch. Antioch was about 40 minutes out of Oakland and almost 60 minutes to San Francisco.
There was a barrier of mountains along the coast.
When I interviewed with DOW Chemical, nobody told me about the really crappy winters they had there. About Mid December, dense ground level fog rolled into the area and the sun went away for the most part for almost 3 months. There were breaks from time to time, but it was damp and cold. About mid-March it would start to break up.
From CA we moved to Kansas. We soon became aware of the snow and bitter cold winds. Usually October came in in very pleasant. But it could quickly get ugly. I took my children trick-or-treating in balmy weather. I also took them out in 20 F temperatures, snow, and sometimes ice-storms. The real bummer was that you sometimes had to wait for Spring. There were times when March warmed and the trees budded....only to have a really cold and bleak April (snow !!!). In fact, my last year there we had two 10" snow events in late April (back to back.....probably the most I'd ever seen) followed by a freak snow storm (of 6") on May 3rd.
For this reason, I often felt the cooler temps of September/October with some sadness. I knew it would pass and soon we would be cold, often cloudy, and snowy.
That is one reason we moved to SE New Mexico. I am looking out at the deep blue sky (I call it Colorado blue) not feeling that same sadness. I don't like the short days, and it gets chilly, but there is rarely a day I can't go outside to do something in relative comfort (provided by a jacket or sweathshirt).
I recall playing football on Christmas Day in T-Shirts at the grade school I attended in Scottsdale.
I am grateful for the mild winters and look forward to the seasonal comfort of Fall and Winter.
Happy fall everyone !
Enjoy !!!!
