After living my first 51 years above 40 degrees latitude in the northern hemisphere, my wife and I moved to North Carolina. We entered the state on January 27, 2006. It was 72 degrees Fahrenheit. We didn’t realize at the time this would occur annually but would not occur daily throughout “winter”. Every year December, January, and February will grace us with a day, maybe two of spring-like temps. Today is one of those days. A dozen days ago as we woke to a winter-typical 32 degrees, a fire seemed the way to go. Today I found it too warm to wear a sweatshirt while working in the yard. A week from now our lows will be in the 30s, our highs in the 40s. This kind of winter I can live with. Tampa where my sister-in-law just moved? No. Their “warm spell” is 80-82 degrees for a few days before dipping to 65 and settling into the high 70s. I like a cooler reset–I just don’t need weeks and weeks hovering near freezing with snow, ice, sleet, and all the treacherous driving it brings. I don’t need the bone-chilling cold of the Puget Sound where the high will be 38, the low 33, and fog will be punctuated by rain. If you can, imagine the opposite of a steam bath–lots of humid atmosphere driving the coldness deep into your joints. I don’t need the snow to fall on November 5th and stay on the ground to mid-March as it did in Spokane from late 2000 to early 2001.

No, I’ll stay here: inland from the storm surge of hurricanes, protected from most of the tornadoes spinning up from Gulf air collisions, humid enough to have only sporadic forest fires, and situated on tectonic plates content to move seldom if at all. And winter warm-ish. Nothing more.