Swedish Seasons and Moderation

Swedes are known to talk a lot about the weather. If you have ever lived in Sweden for an extended period of time, you understand why. Our seasons just do not understand the concept of moderation. Or predictability.

During the school year 2003/04 I lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is dry and hot. The days in Las Vegas follow a very nice pattern of 6-8 hour nights and 16-18 hour days.

Las Vegas has two seasons - "Hell" and "Spring". From May to September, the thermometer just does not even try. It's too hot. It will just pick a temperature in the Way Too Hot spectrum, then hang out there. From October to April, it's really nice.

In Sweden, the seasons are clearly marked. In fact, you could probably put a flag down on the exact time when the seasons change and you could see one seasons give way to the next as if you were looking at photos.

I live in the Southern 1/3 of Sweden, so I actually get to see the sun during Winter and I get to have darkness during the night in Summer. Further North, they don't have these luxuries. The Midnight Sun is just really the Sun being petulant and refusing to go to bed, instead opting for not getting up at all during Winter. "30 days of night" is not just for Alaska and the Northern Territories (though, I'm not sure about the vampires).

After getting 4-5 hours of sleep per night during Summer, I really start to miss the regularity of the Las Vegas days.

Where I live, we get four seasons - Rain, Sludge/Snow, More Rain, and Thunder. In school, they call the seasons Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. This is where the concept of moderation would have been applicable, IF the Seasons had even a smidgeon of a way to understand this nifty idea. But they don't. It's like the weather is an old black-and-white TV set with broken knobs, or an old shower.

In Summer, there are three settings - Hot, Thunder, and Rain.

Fall has two settings - Rain and Overcast (with a chance of Sun)

Winter has two settings and two versions of these settings - Freezing and Chilly. These two settings have the options of Sludge (with chance of Sun) or Snow.

In Spring we have three options - Rain, Hail, or Overcast (with a chance of Sun)

Summer is the only season when I-am-cold doesn't come as a standard feature. I like being warm, so most of the time I am all for Swedish summers. I like being outside on warm days. It's when Warm turns into I-can-fry-eggs-on-the-sidewalk that I start to get cranky. Especially when Sweltering hot turns into Surprise Ice Shower within an hour.
Or a week of 30F winter days, with complimentary Road Slushies*, that turn into a month of -13F and Free For All Icecapades.

But usually, I like having seasons. It's easy to mark the passing of the year, and the unpredictability prevents me from being bored.




*Come to think of it, Cola slushies kind of look like that snow-gravel-asphalt-salt sludge the snow plows pretend to scrape off the roads during winter.