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17 July 2009

Summer thunder storms

I grew up in Montana. Lived there from age 8 until i turned 20. We lived outside Bozeman, which is 90 miles north of Yellowstone Park. And beautiful. Part of the reason i fell in love with Big Bear is because it is a little like Montana.

(A little. Ok, kind of a pale copy, but BB has benefits of its own that Montana doesn't have.)

Anyway, i remember summer days on my parents' place. They had 10 acres about 10 miles out of town. They built it the year i turned 11.


This is the view from their back door. There were not so many houses around when i was growing up.

Anyway, often on summer afternoons i would watch a summer storm move across the valley. I don't remember the summers there being terribly hot, but a summer storm always made the air fresh & cool. It was always such a treat to have a summer storm roll thru.


I think it took about 4 years for it to sink in with me that California is NOT the same. The few times we had a summer storm come thru i waited for that lovely, refreshing breeze that follows the storm. It isn't there in Southern California. In fact, i learned that a summer storm makes it worse.

Southern California near the beaches is not terribly dry, but it does not have the humidity that is notorious on the eastern part of the U.S. So the heat isn't so terrible, usually. But after a summer storm the humidity rises & it feels like you are in a sauna. Oh, it is simply awful.

When we went down the hill on Tuesday the weather was reporting expected clouds but they did not predict any moisture from said clouds. So it was a surprise on Thursday to find the roads wet in places on our way home. Our drive wasn't wet, but the ground showed evidence of recent rain. And i would guess we've gotten half an inch of rain off & on today. At times it has come down quite heavily but doesn't last long. And, of course it is a bit more humid, but nothing like Orange County or Long Beach after such a rain.

Of course, our temp is currently 78 F & the high all summer has been 82. Until this past week it has still be in the 40s at night, but this week we broke that & the lows are in the low 50s. Our second floor does get warm during the day (about 78) & so it takes a while to cool down. But this is SO much nicer than the rest of Southern California!

My parents moved from Montana long ago. I miss Montana. I still visit from time to time, but not often enough. Here are some more pics from (some) of the view from the front of the house where i grew up. Duane turned these into a panorama & it is beautiful, but the drawback is that puts them out of proportion. And the house itself as it is now (red) & not long after i moved away (yellow).








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3 comments:

Amrita said...

Your lovely pastoral photos are a treat to the eyes.

I know the heat and humidity is un bearable after the rain stops.

Jena Webber said...

It's interesting that the rain cools it down here in the midwest but makes it more humid there. We are experiencing very cool (and I like it) breezy weather for this time of year. Thanks for cheering up my blog with your presence!

Kathryn said...

I must not have made my point very clear.

Big Bear is much more like Montana after the rain than is the rest of Southern California. We are at such a high altitude that the air here is cooler & much, much drier.

A rain here is almost as refreshing as it was in Montana.

Unlike the rest of So Cal that suffers with heat & humidity after a rain.