Winter weather

Growing up in Missouri, the automatic response to someone complaining about the weather (especially non-locals) was “Well, if you don’t like the weather, stick around a bit, it’ll change soon.” Since moving to Taranaki a year ago, I have heard a similar sentiment, but it is usually a declaration that you can experience all four seasons in one day. I think I have gotten up to about three in one day in my time here. Due to the temperature extremities I grew up with, it has not yet been both hot and cold enough in one day to feel like I had summer and winter both happening. However, the other day it was warm enough in the sun to feel like early spring, rained in the evening and felt damp and chilly like fall, while there is definitely enough snow on the mountain to make it clear that winter is still here.

Winter in Taranaki is not nearly as severe as what we survive in the Midwest. The worst part is the damp and the wind. It tends to rain quite a lot, and there is a chilling South Easterly that threatens to blow you over on the worst days. Temperature wise it doesn’t get much below freezing, if at all (unless you live right by the mountain), but the wind is able to cut right through you and it feels quite chilly sometimes. The last week has seen a delightful variety in winter weather. This time last week the skies were gray and it seemed like it might never stop raining. Some days it was not really daylight until nearly lunchtime, which I tend to find a bit depressing. Then we got a day of sunshine, but it continued raining. The benefit to this is that you get to see lots of rainbows J But in Taranaki, a sunshiney shower can last half the day. We were lucky over the weekend to have rain-free days of sunshine. I was happy for the sunshine, because we spent most of Saturday at Rugby Park for the Taranaki Rugby Union finals. Now that I have been around long enough to develop an elementary understanding of the game, rugby can be quite fun to watch. I find it a bit quicker-paced than American Football (which is called “grid-iron” here), and therefore easier to follow.

Anyway, back to the topic of weather, winter here is really not so unbearable, but I have found that I keep thinking the holidays must be just around the corner. After a few weeks of winter, my brain is thinking it must be time for Thanksgiving. Instead, it’s time for………….hmmmm well the next holiday is not until the end of October.

Holidays or not, we do have a pretty mountain to look at J

Taken on my way to work on Fri morning.
By the time I got to work, it looked like pink
candy mountain b/c the sun was just coming up :)