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Friday Fun Thread for May 24, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What's perfect weather to you? To me it's low twenties/low seventies during the day, high teens/low sixties during the night, mostly sunny, random showers during the business hours but not on the weekends.

Perfect weather would be going through a yearly seasonal cycle in 4 months instead of 12. There would be a perfect day of winter, snowing 20F, not windy. A perfect day of spring, 70F and humid after just raining with green shooting up everywhere. A perfect day of summer 90F, with a slightly cooling breeze, occasionally big fluffy clouds to give some relief from the sun, and a pool to jump in to cool off. A perfect day of fall, 60F with leaves falling, a cooling breezing that makes sweaters comfortable, and dry weather for some good fire pits in the evening.

I genuinely like weather variations, but I tend to get sick of weather extremes after a month. So just a faster set of seasons would be good.

If I had to pick a single type of weather I'd pick room temperature 70F with no sun or wind. Basically no weather, since I'd get sick of any extremes after enough time.

Sun the vast majority of days (if it's going to rain, it should rain all day), high-80s to low-100s year-round, low humidity. Rain (especially that which is more than just drizzle) isn't a problem so long as it's sufficiently warm. Daylight should persist for no less than 10 hours a day in the winter.

I require the sun to be present in the sky to function correctly, and simply don't hold heat very well and need the environment to do it for me.

The Levant, Mainly Israel and Lebanon fit this profile.

I knew we had Jews on the Motte, but I didn't expect to find a lizard person.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a furry.

A scaly, then?

You never talked to @Lizzardspawn?

Mostly Bay Area weather. I'd increase the number of days with heavy low-laying fog and add thunderstorms to make it a bit more interesting, and I'd make Friday and Saturday nights much warmer to make patio and rooftop dining/drinks actually pleasant.

75 °F (24 °C) and clear around the clock. Of course, that's a pipe dream.

About the same as you; during the day, I want it to be only warm enough that I can go out with only a t-shirt, and at night I want it only cool enough to put on a hoodie and be fine (or to get under the covers). Couple of showers once in a while, light enough that they're not able to soak throroughly through my clothes, just enough to refresh.

Hot dry sunny days or a dense humid thunderstorm. Everything else is boring. The first is like using a sauna and being relaxed inside, the second is like witnessing something eerie and feeling safe inside. For evenings I think colder the better, though.

I agree. I find the climate in England very pleasant, it is rarely too hot or too cold, I just wish the weather engineers could figure out a way to approximately double or triple the amount of sunshine we receive. Daylight hours from 9am to 3pm in winter would not be so bad if it was, at least, sunny.

I hate this term, but "weather engineering" sounds positively demonic. Yeah lets just go ahead and fuck with a chaotic/complex system that we could only model at a large scale recently. Animal and plant life be damned.

We already heavily engineer the weather, maybe we should try to do it scientifically instead of by chance based on what we emit. We already cut down on smog, acid rain and ozone damage, not to mention putting out forest fires. By paying attention and applying what we know we can improve the weather instead of making it worse.

There hasn't been whatever "state of nature" you're imagining for a long long time.

I think you don't fathom the amount of "engineering" it would take to double or triple sunshine hours in the British Isles...

Also smog, acid rain and ozone are the opposite of good examples.

Really? They are ways in which we changed what we are doing to improve the environment. We certainly aren't consuming less or using less energy, but we are doing it in a way that is better for us. We just cut back high sulfur bunker fuel and that is causing even faster global warming, so maybe we should replace that with high altitude sulf distribution to keep the climate stable, or even cool it a bit. Humans have already deeply changed every major system in the world. Everything here is basically here by our decree, this will only be more and more the case as our mastery and understanding increases, we need to continue to decide what we value and what we will preserve.

I also wasn't referring to the original request for more sun, just your comment that climate engineering sounded evil. I think it sounds like what we already do, except done right.

I've been stationed in England for over a year now. If I had to choose between the two extremes of our day lengths, I'd absolutely choose the summer 5 am to 10 pm day length because it means more chance for sun. Folks weren't kidding when they said lack of sun makes you feel blue.

85/30 and sunny with low humidity and a slight breeze. For me a shower less than once a week is ideal.

I have trouble picking a single perfect weather because I enjoy outdoor activities that have a wide variance. I love sitting in the sun on a hot day doing nothing, but if I wake up to that kind of weather when I'm trying to run in a race, I'm not going to be very happy. For the modal day though, I like chilly morning (call it high 40s) and a sunny, moderate temperature afternoon (call it mid 70s).

Are you a desert dweller? I haven't encountered such temperature swings elsewhere.

Just normal upper Midwest United States stuff! These are admittedly not the most common days, which is why I said my ideal days are hard to pick. When we do get these lows in the morning and highs in the afternoon, it's great. Here's May so far. On May 17, we had an overnight low of 49 and an afternoon high of 79. On May 12 it was 47 in the morning and 83 in the afternoon.

Despite the rough winters the late spring and early summer in the Midwest are super underrated for delightful weather.

Which way's up in the Midwest? Towards Canada or the Rockies?

Canada! Rockies are the start of the true West, Canada is the start of the true North.

24'C with clear blue skies.

Maximally sunny. That brilliant blue sky with absolutely everything bathed in light. I don't care if it's 40°C and the land is sere, baking and withering, or it's wet and humid and everyone sweats even at rest in the shade. Give me a good wind on top of it and that's my day. Just the sky and me. I put on my floppy hat and shorts and a backpack full of water, and off I go for a day of hiking, alone with the world.

Maybe I just enjoy heat stroke.

I think 40C and 100% humidity is literally deadly, since sweating no longer can cool you down.

Maybe? Going outside in that kind of heat hasn't killed me yet, but I suppose the humidity must've been lower than 100% then. Or, I suppose, I make enough use of wind, shade and bodies of water to keep my temperature viable. Either way the 40°C alone are doable, at least here in the German summers.

But really, it's the sun that matters the most, not the heat. The heat is just a useful additional factor that allows me to dress light, and keeps the outdoors largely depopulated so I have it to myself. But what really makes good weather to me is the blue sky. I can tolerate a few tasteful clouds here and there, but by and large I want that giant open void overhead.

I'm a wet and cold maximalist. Somewhere between 0C (30F) and 7C (45F) with rain is heaven to me. So basically fall and early winter in any temperate country.

Mostly because I live in a very hot and dry place and am sick of it.

If you get a chance, maybe check out the North American Pacific NW during the "rainy season" (fall through spring): Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC all get at least 8 hours of daylight in the winter, so it's not as bad as Scotland for daylight. It's grey and drizzly (parts of it are technically a rainforest!) and in the middle it hangs out in your desired temperature range for months on end, but rarely gets colder, and it's not humid. Or maybe try New Zealand, they've got more normal weather, but their winter is the northern hemisphere summer. ;-)

You would spend 3 months in Scotland between December and February and be begging for a return to the sun.

I'm neutral/okay with sunlight. I just HATE heat. I run my home AC at 16C (60F) 24/7. Fortunately there exists cold and sunny places.

Also I don't really think I would hate Scotland all that much, I'm just built different and like gloomy weather. I spent 2 weeks in the East Coast of the US this January and being able to walk out all day and not sweating felt like crack.

Same.