Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Today, the buzz in Seattle is not:

• The NBA kibosh on moving the Sac’to Kings to Seattle
• The Anarchists arriving for their annual May Day (aka Loot&Pillage Day) festivities
• The opening of Boating Season

Today, the buzz in Seattle is the possibility of a warm, sunny weekend in Spring.

Yes, the news is That Big.

People talk about it in elevators and while queueing up for coffee. At the bus stop, perfect strangers ask about each other’s weekend plans. Recipes are swapped, stories are shared, and all around town, smiles bloom. Even Seattle’s meteorologists, that sad club of exiles from Places with Predictable Weather, are happier because, if this happens, they’ll have a week or two when they won’t be the butt of everyone’s jokes.

I repeat: if this happens.

Having lived here for more than half my life–sheesh…I never thought that thought before–Having lived here a long, long time, I can tell you, this is the rarest of rare events. It snows more in downtown than this happens. Hell, it snows more in April than this happens.

Springtime in Seattle is a time of blustery extremes. Yesterday was typical. A twenty-five degree (F) temperature differential with lows in the mid-30s (F) and highs in the upper-50s (F). It rained–even some hail over in the foothills–and the wind was stiff enough to knock a new nest (no eggs in it) down from the our big blue spruce in the back garden. Springtime in Seattle is filled with the sound of birdsong and windchimes, filled with the scent of blooming trees. Our patio tables are covered with pollen like the aftermath of a dust storm, and you can almost hear the grass creak as it grows.

And our 7-day forecast never is as homogenous as the picture above.

So, while part of my mind is making plans for this spate of weather (scrape the grill, plant some flowers), another part of my mind will only believe it happened come Monday morning.

k