Sherman Alexie, in his National Book Award-winning novel, “Indian Killer,” describes Seattle weather this way:

“At night, rain and fog invades the city of Seattle, an occupying force that pushed people inside homes, restaurants, and offices to escape it. One moment, bright moon and clear skies. The next moment, gray everywhere. At three in the morning the temperature drops, but not enough to frighten anybody but tourists.”

Alexie has the credentials to comment about the weather in Seattle. Although he grew up in a rural community outside of Spokane, he has lived in Seattle for most of his adult life. He’s seen plenty of Seattle nights and plenty of Seattle winters. I, on the other hand, am hardly native. This is our second winter in northwest Washington and like everywhere else we have lived, the locals keep telling us that the weather this year is unusual. In the summer when temperatures were in the nineties, we heard “it doesn’t usually get this hot.” A while ago, when there was record flooding on the Nooksack and Skagit Rivers, we heard how unusual the flooding was. They were right about the flooding. A 500-year flood only comes on a couple of times each millennium.

My experience of this region, however, isn’t that rain and fog invade every night. Nor does it rain every day. It rains a lot more than any other place I have lived, but even on a rainy day there is usually a break when the rain stops for a couple of hours. I haven’t kept track, but it seems like we have about as many nights when it is clear as nights when it is cloudy, and fog and rain are not an every night occurrence by far. We live up the hill from the bay, and there can be a layer of fog that creeps up to where we live, but there are plenty of other times when we don’t see any fog at all.

I love the Alexie line about the drop in temperature not being “enough to frighten anybody but tourists.” Compared to the other places where we have lived, the low temperatures around here aren’t low at all. It is about 40 degrees out in the wee hours of the morning today. Yesterday the temperature rose between midnight ant 3 am. There is no frost in the ground at all.

There are some wonderful benefits of all of that rain. Despite the mud, which is an issue in the open fields around here, the forests are able to absorb a lot of rain. The ground will get a bit squishy, but those giant trees are amazing in their ability to draw moisture out of the soil. A forest pathway that has standing water on a rainy day will be dry enough to walk with ease the next day. And all of that rain makes the undergrowth lush. Nearly every square inch of ground is covered in moss, lichen, ferns, mushrooms, and other living and growing things. Even when it is not raining, the trees will occasionally release drops of water from their branches at the slightest breeze.

Not all of the breezes are slight here on the coast, however. I’m not sure what I expected, but there is one aspect of the weather that is familiar to me: the wind. I grew up in windy country on the east slope of the Rockies in Montana, and I’ve lived quite a few places where the wind blows a lot. The one exception was the decade when we lived in Boise, Idaho, and there I discovered that one can miss the wind. The few breezes we got there were pretty mild compared with other places I have lived. Real wind is so uncommon that a storm with gusts to 25 mph, will result in all kinds of broken branches and tree debris in the yard. We used to say that the trees were as wimpy as the winds when we lived there.

That isn’t the case here. Combine the moist soil with the high winds, and we’ve seen entire sections of privacy fence blown over. I stepped out into our back yard last evening and was greeted with icy wind blowing hard off of the bay. There’s no fog when the wind is blowing that hard. The few clouds that were in the sky were headed towards the mountains at a quick rate.

Perhaps it is the luxury of being semi-retired, but I do find that I pay quite a bit of attention to the weather these days. The forecasts are calling for unseasonably warm weather across much of the country, but we’re supposed to receive a wave of storms off of the Pacific that might even give us a white Christmas. Mind you, snow in this country isn’t all that dramatic. Although the mountains get a lot of snow, down here on the coast we rarely see more than an inch. The stuff that does fall is wet and sticky and perfect for snowballs and making snow creatures. The roads will get a bit of slush, but aren’t bad even when it is snowing hard. Much worse is an ice storm, when freezing rain coats everything, as was the case the night before last. When that happens, it is best to just stay home. It is unlikely to last more than a few hours, but while it is happening, it is too icy to walk on the sidewalk, and too icy to safely drive.

As Christmas approaches, I’ll be keeping my eye on the weather. We’ve got two services on Christmas Eve and that means a bit more driving than our usual. On the other hand, the traffic should be light as others will be finished with work early on Christmas Eve.

Whatever weather you are experiencing, I pray that this Christmas will be safe and warm for you and that you’ll have enough time free from worries about other things to notice the weather around you.