Some days, it's all about the weather...

Only in Central California in the summertime.

One of the local weather forecasters just said that it's "a little on the cool side" today. The high here today? 90 degrees F, with forecasts for the next seven days not going any higher than the high 90s.

Well, compared to what it could be, it isn't exactly hot. The record highs here for the next seven days hover between 110 F and 112 F. Now, that's hot.

The 30-year average for today is 98 F. In fact, this is the day in August when the daily averages start their downward trend toward fall and winter after hitting a high average of 99 F during the period from July 13 through August 6. By the end of August, the average high will be down to 95 F, and by the end of September the average high will drop to 86 F. Then, the average high temperature really starts falling; by the end of October it is down to 72 F. This isn't necessarily an indication that things are going to cool off, though, since the latest day in the year with a record high of over 100 F comes on October 5, when the record high is 101 F. Still, it's not nearly as likely to get so hot by October, and the drop in average highs is even steeper in November, when it goes from an average high of 72 F on the first of November to an average high of 59 F on November 31. The period of the lowest average high here runs from December 23 through January 8. But even during that period, the record highs run between 68 F and 73 F.

The things you can find out at Weather.com.

Not that I'm obsessed with weather or anything. It's just that my father was very much interested in the weather, coming from a farming background as he did. In fact, he was able to predict weather trends, at least in Southern California, where he spent most of his life, better than the weather bureau could most of the time. With my father watching the weather all the time, and commenting on it, I suppose it's natural that I got interested in it, as well. These days, I'm mostly interested in it because I live in this place where most of the year it is either too hot or too cold for my taste.

And so, I do things like pay attention to daily weather reports. I joke sometimes that here in Central California's San Joaquin Valley it's always either summer or winter, except for the two weeks of spring and the two weeks of fall we get in April and October, respectively. But, often, that's just about the truth. I've seen it go from winter temperatures to summer temperatures, or the other way around, and stay there, within the space of two or three weeks. This is far from the climate I grew up with in Southern California, where it can pretty much be any given temperature on any day of the year - I've seen it cold and cloudy in July and August, and I've seen it in the 90s on Christmas Day there - but the weather rarely remains the same there for more than a few days at a time. It's what I got used to in my childhood and adolescence, and that is the kind of weather I like. It isn't that way here.

Ah, well. We get what we get, in regard to the weather. And what we've had here today isn't bad. As I write this, at nearly 7 pm local time, it is 86 degrees F outside. There were days at the end of June and through July when the temperature didn't get down that far until well after midnight.

So, today, at least, I'm not going to complain about the weather we've got.