What got you interested in weather? Options

[Louieloy102]

For me, when I was 2 or 3, the only channel I liked to watch on tv was the weather channel. (yes, i was an odd child.) For some reason, it was more interesting than any other cartoon. Now, I don't watch the weather channel, but I'm still interested in weather.
Any other interesting stories out there?

[Beck]

As I grew up I began to realize that the weather where I live was not like the weather you see on TV, in cartoons, movies, video games, etc. The places in those forms of media all get snow around the holidays. That doesn't happen where I live. I can see plenty of snow on the mountains afar during the winter, but never down here. I used to think that the weather where I live was the same for everywhere else, before I knew better. I used to think that all places were hot & dry in the summer, and the rains come in the winter. I didn't even know what hurricanes were. To this day, I've still never experienced a snowstorm or ice storm.

In 6th grade (2003-04) I began to read the local newspapers and look at the forecasts, which I found fascinating. The wildfires each summer would interest me further, since you never hear about those occuring elsewhere in the US. Only here, and so close to my home. Sometime in 2004 I too began watching the weather channel, especially as the rainy season was beginning again (October) and we were getting soaked by an unusual amount of early-winter storms, though I didn't know it at the time.

The real kicker was one fateful Sunday morning on November 21st, 2004. I was sleeping over at my friends' house, and the night before there was this torrential lightning storm, but with no rain. My friend's mom came into the room the next morning and woke us up around 6 AM, and I distinctly remember looking outside the window with him and watching it snow! It was somewhat mixed with rain, but this was real snow. It was the first (and only) time I've ever seen it snow down to our valley. Our elevation is approx. 1300 ft, so snow is extremely rare. It hadn't happened before in the area since 1985, and before that, 1971. The snow melted away later that morning, as it had warmed up and turned into rain. But snow remained on the surrounding hills and mountains for the next 3 weeks, including the majestic Elsinore Peak we could see perfectly from our street. The mountain was completely white for 3 weeks straight, we had never seen such a sight before.

And what followed was the second-wettest winter in Southern California's history. I didn't know it at the time. It rained, constantly. And it was quite cold. Flooding occured all around SoCal consistently thorughout the winter, until about April. That was the most it had rained here in at least 120 years.I remember getting up early in the morning, loving that soothing sound of rain outside, and watching the Weather Channel to see them talking about us. They even featured my town in February 2005 because a small F-1 tornado had touched down here very briefly (that NEVER happens, as there is no flat land here). And our monsoon thunderstorms that came much later in the year amazed me, it had never been that extreme before. I had never seen so much lightning, or ever heard so much thunder, or ever experienced so much hail.

And I've been very interested in weather ever since then, particularly for SoCal, I don't have any interest in the weather elsewhere. I'm very fortunate to have been born and raised in SoCal; it's my whole life. It's all I've ever known really. To this day, I've never been east of the Colorado River in the U.S. I've only been to four US states: California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. No where else in America. However, I have been to more countries in Europe than I have U.S. states: England, Scotland, France, Germany, Austria, and Czech Republic.

To this day, flat landscapes with no mountains or hills in sight weird me out.

[idecline]

The Weather?

[Louieloy102]

@beck ( I can't quote lots of text because I'm on an iPad)
One funny thing is that I've also been to more countries than states.