Near Northsider – Houston

It’s 66 degrees in Houston right now (8:30am) with a high of 85 degrees. The weather is perfect and beautiful. Predictions look the same for the rest of the week, but we don’t dare rule out another week or two of hot, humid weather. Nonetheless, fall is coming whether summer likes it or not. It’ll be a relief from the heat and the high electricity bills that the companies blamed on rising gasoline prices yet we all knew we were being taken advantage of and could do nothing about it.

Summer in Houston is oppressively hot and extremely humid. It can get humid even if there’s a drought in the region for weeks. But then when it rains, the sun comes out and warms the moisture to feel like you’re in a sauna that someone is making too hot to be comfortable.

I remember being in kindergarten or first grade and being shown images in books that illustrate the weather. Summer was usually shown as a bright, clear day with the sun shining powerfully in full view with no clouds in the sky. Rain fell from the sky while children with umbrellas and water-proof shoes go splashing in puddles. Fall showed the leaves changing color and falling off trees while winter showed this icy wonderland of snow and children sliding down powdery slopes on something that we were told was a “sled”. Needless to say, NONE of this is a realistic depiction of the Houston climate.

It doesn’t snow in Houston.  I  never saw snow until I went to Chicago for college.  Leaves mostly turn the color brown then fall off  of trees, but not all of them.  No one splashes in puddles because you need to be careful of fire ants, water mocasains, and aligators when water collects after a heavy rain.  Whenever the sun comes out on a summer day with no clouds in the sky, that’s a good indication that it’s better to stay indoors or seek shade and beware of heatstroke, dehydration, and exhaustion.  I think that having cliche images like these in our psyche as Houstonians only leads us to disappointment and frustration with our local climate because we apply standards of weather from other regions of the country; these expectations might even be derrived from European art and stroytelling that dominates the culture.  Maybe we should rename our seasons: Hurricane Season, Allergy Season, Crawfish Season, and Summer.