Winter is the worst time of year here. The sun is set for more than 15 hours per day and even when it's up I haven't seen it much behind the clouds. The snow and ice we had earlier made things difficult for a lot of people, too.

The weather patterns here are interesting. It's been pretty windy here this weekend, with wind coming from the south. In Texas, wind from the south meant that warm weather was coming, but this wind wasn't bringing warmer weather with it. Local weather forecasts are interesting here, too, since the weather is appreciably different on the Olympic peninsula, at the Cascade foothills, and at the mountain passes. Each weather forecast mentions the snow level, which is at 500 feet now.

It kind of feels like we've turned a corner, though. There's still plenty of winter left, but the days are getting longer, the snow has melted (mostly), and the weather is in the 40s and getting up to 50 on Wednesday.