Last updated on November 26, 2023
Podcast 044; Season 4, Episode 8; October 20, 2020
We’ve lived in four states. Now, in Central Texas, we’re home. Central California was the fire and brimstone Hell. Minneapolis was the frozen Nordic Hell. Pittsburgh? The drivers are from Hell.
Here outside Austin, we’re enjoying good weather… and not driving.
No Snow, No Gloom
Welcome to The Autistic Me Podcast. I am Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me.
My sensory issues make dealing with weather a challenge. I’ve written about weather and sensory overload often on The Autistic Me blog.
Right now, we’re in that odd transition month from summer to fall in the Austin area. In a week or two, people will switch from wearing shorts to jeans. Or to shorts and sweatshirts.
I’m really glad we moved here, and so are the girls. It’s nice enough to be outside most of the year. Summer mornings are wonderful outside and winter afternoons are nice, too. Even the rain is
often a pleasant, gentle rain.
If you have enough money, weather probably doesn’t matter as much. You can heat or cool your house and not worry about the cost. You can buy expensive winter clothing. Money lets you buy the climate you want.
We were fortunate enough to be able to move to Texas. It lacks the harsh winters and boiling summers I disliked everywhere else.
It’s been in the 90s here in Central Texas. That sounds hotter than it is. There’s often a nice breeze and sunny skies. The mornings are cool enough to do yard work or take a walk.
Meanwhile, six inches of snow fell in Minneapolis to start the week and it was dark and gloomy back in
Pennsylvania.
I happen to love 50 to 70-degree weather. The overcast skies in Western PA reminded me of California’s Central Coast. I could wear jeans and polo shirts in the fall and be perfectly comfortable. I was usually one of the last people to switch from shorts to jeans, waiting until the daily high temperatures were in the 40s.
What I don’t like is having to layer clothes for cold mornings and warm, humid afternoons. In Pennsylvania you might also start with a warm morning and then need layers later in the day. I’d leave
a jacket and gloves in the SUV from the end of summer to the start of spring for the unpredictable weather.
I hate jackets, gloves, and hats. But, you had to have them on hand by the middle of October. Anything could happen.
The change of seasons in Western PA is a rollercoaster of temperatures hidden by dense morning fog and clouds. Despite one day this week with a high near 80, just so residents don’t forget the joys of hot humidity, the next 10 days in Pittsburgh are mostly cloudy and under 60.
At first, I was thrilled with the cloud cover. I’m extremely photosensitive and wear sunglasses even inside some rooms. It was nice not to have headaches from sunshine. Transition glasses were sufficiently
dark for a few minutes outside.
Eventually the gloom gets to everyone I met in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is gloomy. There’s no other word for it. It’s been rated as one of the five gloomiest cities in the
nation for good reason. I had to look up what the difference was between partly cloudy and partly sunny. Turns out, it is 3/8 vs. 5/8 cloud cover for the majority of daylight hours, according to several sources. Is it more or less than half of the sky for most of the day?
Whatever. It’s cloudy. It’s dark. It’s depressing after a few weeks. It’s not a few puffy white clouds in a blue sky. The sky teases you with hints of blue, right before the sun vanishes. Over a year, Pittsburgh has 203 mostly-cloudy days. It competes with Seattle for cloudiest region in the nation.
Most years, Seattle and Portland edge out Pittsburgh with an additional two weeks of cloudy skies.
However… if you count those partly-sunny days? Then Pittsburgh has 306 days with cloud cover. Yes, more than 300 gloomy days.
People buy sunlamps and tanning beds
in Pennsylvania. I get it. You might move there without Seasonal Affective
Disorder… you’ll get it after a couple of winters.
Yet, where we lived in Pennsylvania
had better weather than the Twin Cities or our native Central California. I could
live and work in Pennsylvania. We would have remained there with the right job.
There are seasons in Pennsylvania. They
just all include clouds.
Winter was the only season I really
disliked in PA. Thankfully, it was only a few months long.
Yes, it snows in Western PA and the
snow accumulates. Just as you reach that sick and tired of winter stage, the
snow melts and bulbs begin to bloom.
Western PA is lush and green. Even
the suburbs feature dense foliage and flowers everywhere. I loved spring and
fall in Pennsylvania. Summer wasn’t even bad. You could work in the flower beds
most of the year.
I’d spend winter waiting for those
beautiful springs.
Winters in Pennsylvania were
stressful and exhausting.
Driving in snow and ice in Pittsburgh
and the surrounding region is incredibly dangerous. There are a lot of YouTube
videos featuring cars and trucks sliding down the city’s steep streets. The hills
and sharp turns lead cars into ravines and barriers.
Commuting to or from the
universities, I’d sometimes count the accidents along the way. There were days
with more than 100 accidents on the roads. Driving to campus left me tense for
hours.
There’s only so much you can do to
avoid sliding on ice.
I managed to slide down a parking
garage ramp, damaging the front of our Jeep. That poor Jeep endured ice-related
accidents with my wife driving and with me driving in two different states. She
hit black ice on a Minneapolis freeway, with the back bumper striking the barrier.
My wife has observed that we’ve lived
in both versions of Hell: the Christian version with fire and brimstone and the
Nordic or Asian hells with caves of ice.
The Twin Cities was the frozen
version of Hell. Returning to the Twin Cities would be difficult for me. We
only considered a return to the Land of Frozen Lakes because my wife works for
a company based in a Minneapolis suburb.
It has snowed on August 31 in
Minneapolis. You heard me correctly. August 31. And it has snowed as late as
June 4. Sure, those are the extremes, you’re thinking. It can’t really be
winter from September through May.
Oh, yes it can be winter for nine
months, though “only” six or seven months have measurable snowfall. You might
not have a day above freezing in December, January, or February.
Imagine 60 to 70 days below
freezing, as the high temperature. There can be two weeks below zero. Two weeks
with negative temperatures. And that’s not factoring in the windchill. They’ve
recorded negative temperatures in March.
Nothing can prepare you for extreme
cold.
Clothing triggers my sensory
overload. You need clothing, and lots of it, in Minneapolis.
You need gloves. Ideally, gloves
with two layers so you can remove the insulated outer shell when you need to
use fingers. You certainly don’t want bare fingers. Your skin will crack and bleed
without oily gels and lotions, even under gloves.
Absolutely cover your ears, too. Hats,
scarves, and earmuffs. I’d see people with all three on the train. One person,
not three people. One person with all three. You just cannot take chances with
ears, which are thin and freeze quickly.
My ears, cheeks, and nose would burn
in the cold winds of the Twin Cities. It’s an indescribable pain. Sharp, like
razor blades or paper cuts across your skin. No… Paper cuts hurt less than cold
wind. With any ice in the air? That wind would leave your face a burning red
color. It’s not mere wind burn like from riding a motorcycle in cool weather.
No, this feels like a serious burn.
And everyone who follows The
Autistic Me blog knows there were broken bones. I slipped in Pennsylvania, too,
on the ice, but not nearly as often as in Minneapolis. Crosswalks? The paint
(hidden by snow) becomes slick and dangerous. Stairs? The old stone and
concrete stairs of the university were like climbing blocks of ice.
I had to use my cane. After cracking
or breaking bones, I had to use crutches a couple of times.
My eyes were damaged forever by the
cold at a bus stop. The vision still upsets me, because it might not have
happened if I hadn’t lived in Minnesota. The cold, dry air just ruins your
exposed skin and eyes.
The dirty snow was disgusting. It bothered
me more than dust and dirt normally do. Dirty snow is frozen mud.
Winter made public transit
unbearable, but necessary. People sweating under layers of clothing stink.
Everyone smells. I hated my own smell. Mud and stench, plus screeching train
brakes. I couldn’t bear the input some days. I’d quit trying to do anything.
Since I sweat all the time, I’d ruin
dress shirts in the winter. The shirts would discolor, looking like a creepy tie-dyed
pattern around the collars, back, and under the arms.
Malls survive in Minnesota because
you need indoor spaces for walking and getting out of the house.
I posted a lot of rants on The
Autistic Me about the cold in the Twin Cities because every year was a new injury
and more pain. Winter after miserable winter, I dreamed that pursuing the doctorate
would take us somewhere better.
It was often sunny between storms.
It’s a painfully bright sunshine that reflects off the snow and puddles. Still,
the sun brought hope that snow might melt. Except nothing melts below freezing.
Why did I decide to attend the
University of Minnesota?
Because I didn’t understand that
cold is worse than heat. I had never had to shovel snow or wear five layers of
clothing. I had never had my hands bleed from dryness. Who knew that air could
be so dry it causes cracks and tears in your corneas? Broken bones and a loss
of vision were part of the price of moving from one Hell into another.
Central California was a terrible place
for me. Sure, I thought, Minneapolis will be much better for my mind and body.
I was wrong. I cannot tolerate
extreme cold or the things necessary to adapt to the cold.
We left California’s San Joaquin
Valley because I couldn’t tolerate the heat. Extreme heat makes me physically ill.
I sweat a lot all year, and extreme heat leads to dehydration no matter how much
I try to stay hydrated. I end up bloated, with difficulty moving.
In 1984, the Central Valley had 63
days over 100 degrees. It was brutal. In 2005, the year before we moved, there
were 21 consecutive days of extreme triple-digit summer heat.
When the heat goes on, day after day
after day, it has other side effects.
Central Valley air quality is
notoriously bad. The geography creates a bowl — a 400-mile long, skinny bowl.
The lower Coastal Range and gaps around the Bay Area allows the winds to push
air pollution up against the much higher Sierra Nevada peaks. Pollution hangs
over the Valley for months.
That wonderful “dry heat” people
brag about in the Central Valley? It’s why the air quality is so horrible.
In August and September, forest
fires add to the haze. Many of the worst fires are natural, caused by lighting
and dry conditions. The habitats evolved for fires, which some people don’t
understand. Fire is part of the lifecycle in the region.
The Central Valley and Los Angeles
had stagnant, smokey air long before cars existed. The mountains surrounding
Los Angeles create a bowl, too. The La Brea Tar Pits and natural wildfires made
the Los Angeles Basin hazy when the first people arrived.
For 280 days of the year, the
Pacific Inversion holds air stagnant over much of California. In areas with low
humidity, the ozone hangs in the air. In other states, humidity contributes to
visible haze. In the Central Valley and Los Angeles Basin, humidity would help
reduce the ozone levels.
November through March is Tule Fog
season. The Valley goes from extreme heat, through fire season, and into
dangerous dense fog. Having lived in several states, I can attest that what
people call “dense fog” elsewhere has nothing on the near-zero visibility of Tule
Fog.
Traffic accidents become multi-vehicle
pile ups on the freeways. You cannot see the lines on the roads, much less
other cars or trucks. People miss stop signs and traffic signals. Tule Fog is
deadly, which is why “foggy day schedules” are common for schools.
We’d wake up early to listen to local
radio stations for the list of school delays. The standard delay was two hours.
After the fog, you might have three
or four nice weeks. And then the heat returns. By April, 90 degree days return.
Yes, according the National Weather Service, the “warm season” lasts from mid-April
through mid-October.
Seven months of miserable heat and
bad air.
In Texas, we have found our final
destination. The slight humidity means my eyes won’t be ripping again if I forget
eye drops. There are only a few days of frozen sleet and light snow. You never
need to shovel a driveway or sidewalk.
The heat is tolerable, especially
when compared to the mix of heat and bad air in Central California.
I’m content in shorts and a t-shirt,
sitting in the shade with a cold drink.
It’s good to be home.
I am Christopher Scott Wyatt,
speaking as The Autistic Me.
Thank you for listening.
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