WKSU News: Cleveland Winter better than Phoenix Summer

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Cleveland Winter better than Phoenix Summer What's the best for playing outside at noon? by WKSU's PAUL GASTON	Commentator Paul Gaston

The National Weather Service says the coldest part of the year for Greater Cleveland falls between January sixteenth and January twenty-eighth. The average low for these days is eighteen degrees. So WKSU commentator Paul Gaston believes now may be the perfect time to think good thoughts about Cleveland weather.

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In July, while you were enjoying the blue skies and ideal temperatures of northeast Ohio in the summertime, I was enjoying a vacation in Oregon. The temperature in Portland? One hundred seven. Portland is usually more pleasant, of course, and heat waves like that one are fairly rare. But it made me think about climate . . . and more particularly about the climate in northeast Ohio.

On the trip back, the flight via Houston crossed through eastern Oregon, part of Idaho, a slice of Utah, a corner of Colorado, the panhandle of Oklahoma, and lots and lots of Texas. Flying over Dallas, I recalled the summer of 1962. I lived in an un-air-conditioned fraternity house at sum. Ninety degrees at midnight was not that unusual. My fraternity brothers and I welcomed a tornado warning. Severe weather usually brought a brief break in the heat.

And I thought from the perspective of thirty thousand feet about the highway blocking blizzards in Wyoming. Sandstorms in Utah. Crippling drought in eastern Oregon. Tornadoes aplenty in Oklahoma. Hurricanes in Houston. Wind-fanned firestorms in arid southern California.

Here’s the bottom line. Most places, the weather tends to be worse, on average, than it ever is here, and the extremes tend to be a lot more extreme. Just try playing golf in Phoenix after nine am on a July morning. Or walk across the Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis in February. Or try a bike ride in Orlando on a fine summer afternoon. The weather service records make it clear. Northeast Ohio has more moderate temperatures, lower risk from severe weather, and less danger of drought and flood than most other places you might name.

Sure, weather in Cleveland can be interesting. And I would hate to think that we would stop complaining about it entirely. In February, if it were not for the weather and the cave’s, what would we talk about? But how often, when you stop to think about it, does the weather dictate to us what we can and cannot do? Heavy snow? Time for the snowshoes and the sleds. It gets really cold? The pond’s ready for ice skating.

So what am I suggesting? That every now and then we pause, look at the map, and admit that, for all our complaining, we live in a climate that’s not so bad after all. And in fact it’s better for year ‘round living than most other places.

Listener Comments:

Summer here in Houston (late April through mid to late October) is hellish. High, oppressive heat and humidity. You cant do much outdoors without sweating through your clothes and dying of heat stroke. Go camping? Forget about it. Go have a picknick in a park? If you are lucky enough to find a spot that's fireant-free, then spread your blanket on the ground and proceed to soak it through with your sweat.

Posted by: Chris (Houston) on January 13, 2011 6:01AM

i do see why winter is so good i meits so cold and ugly

Posted by: Anonymous on January 29, 2010 1:47PM

You've got to be kidding. We don't see any sun for 3 months in the winter here. You might not be able to golf after 9:00 am in Phoenix during July but you can't golf here either in January. What's the difference? At least in Phoenix in July you can take a walk after the sun goes down. Here it's just too cold. Look at the obesity in this city because people don't go outdoors. Cleveland is absolutely beautiful during the spring and summer months, but winter here is a huge detriment and is really he$l. I'd take hot over cold anytime.

Posted by: CW (Cleveland) on January 7, 2010 11:40AM

So True!! I've been telling my relativers this for years! Well done - JC

Posted by: Jeanna (Chardon) on January 6, 2010 2:38PM

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