Here we are – the Fifth of July.  For the rest of the Northern Hemisphere it’s the middle of summer.  Here it’s damp and bone chilling.  (Maybe Seattle has flipped hemispheres. Southern Hemisphere = the middle of winter.)  Since the Fourth tends to be an outside celebration, Seattleites are painfully aware of its weather shortcomings when facing barbeques with jackets, hats and gloves. Yesterday, I ate my barbeque with friends huddled around a fire pit, under an umbrella with steady rain streaming down.  But that’s the typical Seattle Fourth of July.  Of the 18 years we’ve lived in Seattle, I can think of only several occasions of mild, clear summer weather during the Fourth. When it occurs, we are practically giddy.

I compile a cultural presentation for a team of recruiters in Asia to educate them about Seattle and the Puget Sound.  In researching July, I discovered that it’s our driest, sunniest month – but don’t be bringing your suntan lotion.  The average temperature is 65 AND we get 12 completely sunny days!  (Seattle only gets a total of 71 clear days a year.)  We get so little sun in Seattle that we are advised as a population to take Vitamin D. 

Here are the advantages. There were no fires from yesterday’s fireworks.  Air conditioning is unnecessary.  We haven’t had to water our lawns this year.  It’s so green; we call Seattle the Emerald City. Only tourists use umbrellas.  (It doesn’t rain that hard and if we waited until it stopped, we’d never go anywhere.)  We buy more sunglasses because when we finally need them, we can’t find them. We don’t worry about our hair.  We wash it and wear it naturally. (A fashion capital, we are not.)

Have I enticed you to visit?  Not so much?  The Seattle Visitors and Convention Bureau hasn’t recruited me to promote the city.  When it’s clear and sunny, it is one of the most stunning places on earth. You just have to figure out when one of those 71 days occurs. They say that the Fifth of July is the official start of the Seattle summer.

What’s your favorite summertime place?  I’m open to suggestions.

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