Weather. We have it.

[cupiscent]

There's a thing oft-lambasted in stories where a sudden storm springs up (often "magical") and forces some plot point. The really lambasted bit is when the storm suddenly blows over and there's sunshine and birds singing

Comments

[qthelights]

tell me about it.. and it was so heavy.. i thought it was gonna break in our 6th floor windows!

[incandescent]

Ahaha, my god, I've actually used that plot point. *runs and hides*

But it does sound beautiful when it happens for real. I know that it was like that after the hurricane we had last year - absolutely beautiful, perfect weather.

[cupiscent]

It depends on how you use it and its place in the story. There has been many a conversation over beer about how there's nothing quite as splendid as "snowed in" fic sometimes. :D

[incandescent]

That is very true. And wow, how I could use one of those right now.

[burntcopper]

in the UK, see 'this Tuesday, in the space of 10 minutes'.

we do not have climate. we have weather.

[immlass]

Having grown up in Houston, that never struck me as weird at all as a plot point. That's normal weather. "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, it'll change!".

Of course I very rarely saw fantasies set in Houston-like climates. Euro fantasies, not so much with the sub-tropical coastal plains.

[cupiscent]

This is very interesting to me! Melbourne has the same general reputation - wait ten minutes / four seasons in one day / etc. I wouldn't call us sub-tropical, though (mostly because I grew up in sub-tropics, a lot like Florida... I haven't been to Texas so I don't know the comparison). The fast-moving weather mostly comes up off the Bight, I assume via the Roaring Forties, so it's usually very to extremely cold air. But either way, I suppose it's caused by strong air/water streams that move weather fast.

[immlass]

Houston is a lot like (parts of) Florida: hot and humid with occasional hurricanes, though Texas is a lot more sheltered than Florida from the storms. No winter to speak of. We call it a "hard freeze" when the temperatures stay under 32F/0C and that's unusual. We very rarely get snow, and when we do it doesn't stick. A snow flurry shuts down the city (and of course there's no equipment if it does stick to the road). Also it's similar to NOLA, so there is genre fiction about it, just not Euro fantasy.

Austin, where we are now, is roughly at a terrain break between plains and the "Hill Country". Obviously weather patterns here vary a lot. In this part of Texas (less than 200 miles from Houston) it's a lot drier but otherwise similar to Houston. There are also three weather patterns/atmospheric climate systems that meet roughly around here and that's part of why the Texas coastal plains have such hard-to-predict weather. No single system dominates.

[lobelia321]

Fic influences reality. I knew it.