Temperatures could climb to the mid-50s on Wednesday afternoon in Seattle.Courtesy NWS
How the sun changes Seattle.Getty Images
While “it’s gravity keeps us from drifting lifeless and cold through space” (as one colleague quipped) … it’s the sun that we worship.
Photo: Childlike glee takes flight when a trio of nuns from the Order of St. Benedict make a splash in the Pacific Ocean while vacationing at Grayland in 1960. The photographer was Tom Brownell. Credit SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Also, said a colleague, a recent trip to Green Lake tells me it inspires some men to wax and display their chests. … though many of us just go all natural …
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We eat more salads and fruit … because, one, they’re tastier in summer and, two, (like the men mentioned above) we’re fantasizing about looking like those tanned models on magazine covers ... or the hipsters of old ... Photo: Dancers at the Rainbow tavern, 1980. Credit: PI file.PI File
We wake up earlier and are more productive in the morning … because we’re going to skip out in the early afternoon.
PHOTO BY COPYRIGHT MOHAI, 2002.68.1074.005 ("NW Choreographers and Composers Concert," Bumbershoot, 1974).
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I, for one, dream a lot more … I guess the sun is messing with my melatonin levels … or maybe it’s just having some left over solar energy.
You can get ready faster in the morning, since we don’t have to gear up like we’re about to attempt a mountain ascent … like the Rough Rider himself.
Photo: Teddy Roosevelt is pictured with conservationist John Muir (to the President's left) in Yosemite Valley, California, in 1903. (Photo: PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
PhotoQuest/Getty Images
We drink different beers and wines … cool lagers, ales, hefeweizen, and chilled white wines. Photo: Bartender Arlene Smith at the 5 Point, 1980. Credit: PI file.PI File
We make different cocktails … more crushed fruit but less sugar ...
… speaking of which margaritas sound good earlier in the afternoon during the summer … Photo: Seattle's Butler Bar sometime during prohibition, which in Washington State started in 1916. Credit: PI filePI File
But, we worry more about our weight since we can’t hide beneath layers and layers and jackets and hoods, hats or the occasional umbrella.
Photo: Cigar-chomping trainer Eddie Marino laces up a glove on middleweight titleholder Al Hostak for his Sept. 18, 1938 bout with Young Stuhly at Seattle's Civic Auditorium. Frank "Slim" Lynch lit the scene from below so that a ghostly light plays over the scene.
Likewise, we ogle each other much more (and not always in a creepy way … It’s just that we can see more of a person, and here in the NW seeing any amount of skin beyond hands and faces is a novelty.)
Photo: Even in the dingy Seattle Post-Intelligencer office setting a few years ago, Marilyn Monroe's legendary glamour shined through.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer file
We exercise more since it’s nice out and we’re looking for excuses to get out more and be dazzled by the sun.
Photo: World’s fair at UW, 1909: Seattle’s first world’s fair, the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, was staged on the University of Washington campus to commemorate the city’s growth since the Klondike Gold Rush. This postcard shows many of the elaborate buildings, seen across Geyser Basin, which later became known as Frosh Pond. A new geyser, Drumheller Fountain, was donated for the university’s centennial celebration in 1961.
Walking is a pleasure … instead of a trek through a gauntlet of mist and rain.
Photo: The wonders of Washington, 1909: Elaborate buildings and an elegant midway were built for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in 1909. The Manufacturers Building, pictured above, was part of Washington Circle, a group of exhibition buildings showing visitors the many wonders of Washington state. The midway featured the highest Ferris wheel in the world.
Take longer lunches (… see earlier reference to margaritas).
Photo: Before the Pike Place Market opened in 1907, farmers and shoppers informally met to trade along Western Avenue. Small farms, often tended by recent immigrants, spread through Rainier Valley and the valleys of the Duwamish, Black and White rivers south of the Seattle, as well as valleys far to the east. The market's building, the arcade opened in 1907, followed by the Sanitary Market in 1910.
Business folks try to schedule more “walking meetings” … just like when kids get to have class outside. You’re not as efficient, but who cares! Photo: Seattle Center. Nov. 23, 1963. (seattlepi.com file photo)
seattlepi.com file photo
Drive with the windows down … That windswept hair is very becoming …
One seems to have more energy … solar power rocks. Photo: Swimmers at the pool at the Green Lake Aqua Theater shortly after the Aqua Follies troupe arrived in Seattle in 1957. Credit: PI file)
We’re all in a better mood (… until the heat drags on for a few weeks and then we’re agitated and worried it’ll never end.)
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The wonders of nature open up before us … you know, since we can see a lot more of it and our glasses aren’t spattered and fogged.
Photo: Here's Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in California. (Photo by Bob Thomas/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Bob Thomas/Popperfoto/Getty Images
The actual sun gives us something to talk about other than rain, especially after the first week of any real heat when we’re all out shopping for fans.
We’re even more adventurous … in our minds anyway. Things like bungie jumping, off-road bike riding, parasailing or hang gliding, rock climbing suddenly seem like great ideas!
Photo: The April 1976 P-I photo caption read: With one small exception, these passengers on the Galaxie, one of the most popular rides at Seattle Center's Fun Forest, seem to be having the time of their lives. (Grant M. Haller/Seattlepi.com file)
Grant M. Haller/Seattlepi.com file
Good day sunshine - Beatles
Photo: The Beatles fishing from a window in suite 272 at the Edgewater Hotel, Aug. 21, 1964. (Photo courtesy Edgewater Hotel)
William Lovelace/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Sunshine lovers, prepare for a few more days of rays in Seattle.
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Cloud cover and rain weren't expected to return to the Emerald City until Friday evening at the earliest -- a weather system may bring rain to northern coastal areas by Friday night, according to a forecast discussion by the National Weather Service.
With clear skies comes colder temperatures in the mornings, dipping to below freezing for much of Western Washington on Wednesday morning. Freezing temperatures means drivers may need to take an extra few minutes in the morning to scrape their windshields, and commuters may need to look for slick, icy patches on roads.
However, highs were expected to reach the low 50s in Seattle on Wednesday with full sunshine.
Wet weather was expected to linger through the weekend. By midweek next week, drier conditions were expected to dominate.
But for now, expect to see crowded parks and bar patios over the next couple of days in Seattle as residents soak up the rays. To see some of the ways full days of sunshine changes the lives of Seattleites, click through the slideshow above and rejoice.
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More good news for heliophiles: in less than two weeks, Daylight Saving Time will take effect -- "springing forward" clocks and pushing 6 p.m. sunsets to 7 p.m.
