My former PM Magazine/Buffalo co-host, Susan Hunt, lives in Santa Monica. She spent the summer in Buffalo.
Susan’s a producer on House Hunters Renovations. Lots of time on-the-road.
Time to come back west.
I sense her homesickness, her desire to stay put. Susan grew up in Buffalo in a family deeply rooted in the community. She’s just experienced summer in a place where summer’s amazing. Warm, not hot. The sunniest spot in New York State.
Yes, Buffalo has sunny summers!
Because sunshine the rest of the year is a Buffalo rarity residents come out and take advantage of every moment. So, it’s been gorgeous and she’s had fun.
That other season is about to arrive. The Sun will disappear. The hours of darkness will ratchet up like interest charges on a payday loan.
Buffalo winters test you. They are relentless. Helaine and I failed.
I posted a few meteorological graphs to Susan’s Facebook page. I’m trying to make her departure easier.
The charts show median cloudiness–half the days are cloudier, half are sunnier. By November Buffalo is dimly lit. Overcast is the rule!
Susan and I have only gotten together once since my arrival in SoCal. I want to see her again. But Buffalo?
I’ve already done my time.
MEDIAN CLOUD COVER (courtesy: www.weatherspark.com)
BUFFALO
NEW HAVEN
SANTA MONICA
My Cousins live in Buffalo. We’ve been there numerous times and the weather has kicked us squarely in the keister on many occasions. (Being stuck on Grand Island when the bridges froze up in March was memorable). One of my Cousins kids got in trouble with her teacher when she argued that there are NOT four seasons because ” Daddy says there’s only two– winter and less winter”! ( her Daddy was born in CT). I like to visit there. I also like to come home………:D
You might find it interesting that while Buffalo is pretty bad in terms of winter sunshine – they are not alone in their often sunless skies: Much of the Great Lakes has dismal sunshine hrs in the three winter months (NY, PA, MI, OH, and northern WI). The worst is the Pacific Northwest, once north of around San Francisco, winter sunshine hrs fall off a cliff, and by the time one reaches places like Seattle and Vancouver, BC, it’s a horror show: In December (the cloudiest month of the year on average) the PNW averages less than 60 hrs of sunshine (worse than anywhere in the Great Lakes).
On the other hand, much of the lower West Coast, southern Plains, and East Coast from Rhode Island south do pretty well in terms of winter sun – they average more than 140 hrs of sunshine in December. Parts of southern Florida and the southwestern deserts average more than 200 hrs of sunshine. Here is a map that NOAA produced some years back:
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff141/nomadct/wisun.jpg