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rainAP.jpg
KIRO Radio's Luke Burbank is leading the chorus of complaints about the rain, even though the first storm of the season is barely upon us. (AP image)

Already?! Luke laments the rain

BY Josh Kerns  on November 19, 2012 @ 10:05 am (Updated: 10:43 am - 11/19/12 )

That didn't take long. The rainy season has barely begun, and already KIRO Radio's Luke Burbank has had enough.

"This is what makes me want to move out of Seattle. This weather makes me want to leave this city because you can't walk from your front door to your car without getting completely and totally soaked. Everywhere you try to step there's water running...It's the absolute worst."

Not everyone agrees. Co-host Dave Ross seems to take a particular joy in the rain and gloom, much to Luke's chagrin.

"Why do you take a perverse glee in bad weather. What goes on in your brain?" Luke asks.

I just look forward to going home and stoking up the wood stove and taking out a book. Plus, it fills my water feature for free and the rain barrels, oh the rain barrels," Dave says.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Neher says he has a simple solution to dealing with the rain: going back a few months in his mind. "I just go back and remember September. And the early part of October was pretty nice," he says.

That means nothing to Luke.

"This is the psychology of living in Seattle. We delude ourselves. Even the people that work for the National Weather Service that live here, they've fooled themselves into thinking that a couple of weeks of decent summer weather makes up for this soggy, soggy life we live the rest of the year."

Luke, who's lived all over the country after growing up in Seattle, says he'd much rather have the cold and snow of a Midwest or East Coast winter where severe weather makes way for plenty of sunny days over the months-long gloom and drip of a Northwest winter.

"Every year I've lived here, I have less patience for the weather. It used to be I could go through most of the winter before I was fed up. Now, first big rainstorm," he says.

But producer Andrew Walsh, survivor of hard core winters in Cleveland and other snow bound cities, says he much prefers a little rain to bitter cold and snow.

"You are encrusted with road salt, there's nothing but salt and black snow and it sticks to everything and it is just nasty. Trust me. By the end of of a winter in Cleveland or Chicago, you will be dying to come back to Seattle."

"You gotta let it roll off. Under your clothes you're waterproof," responds Dave. Plus, he reminds Luke, it helps prevent those pesky UV rays that can cause skin cancer.

Suffice it to say that's little consolation for Luke. And the long term forecast calls for plenty of whining ahead.

Josh Kerns, MyNorthwest.com Reporter
Josh Kerns is co-host of KIRO Radio's Seattle Sounds (Saturday nights 7-8) and a digital content producer for MyNorthwest.com.
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Comments (8)


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  • Snout wrote...
    Stop whining.
    November 19, 2012 11:50 am
    Maybe it's the NPR background that forces you to always brood, complain and sound depressed. Our weather is what it is. It hasn't changed since my family moved here from the NYC in the late 70's. I have fond memories of the old town but would not want to move back there. If you prefer the East coast then move back there.
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  • justanotheridiot wrote...
    I have an idea...
    November 19, 2012 12:17 pm
    just leave the area forever and take that hobbit sidekick with you. Just another cry baby idiot
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  • Forrest wrote...
    The world is a big place and there is a spot in it for everyone.
    November 19, 2012 12:29 pm
    Sometimes that spot is prison! Seriously, if you don't like the climate (political or weather) there is always the option of moving.
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  • ClinkerCat wrote...
    Really, Luke...
    November 19, 2012 12:50 pm
    I totally agree with Dave and I have to park 1/3-mile at least from my house, so I get drenched, and there's a lake around my house. But I love it! I only wish the big rain had come on Sunday so I could have laid on the couch with the fireplace going and read my book all day with the rain coming down. But, oh, well, I'll just have to look outside my office window and enjoy. I grew up in the Midwest, moved here 30 years ago, and wouldn't trade a day of the rain to be anywhere else (well, maybe Maui, but whatever...like THAT's going to happen...:)
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  • Padre wrote...
    Go to Hawaii or Mexico
    November 19, 2012 12:58 pm
    I'm sure you can afford it, Luke.
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Hey, poor baby Luke. - the world does not revolve around you.
    November 19, 2012 4:29 pm
    Go somewhere warm and sunny - forever.

    Forrest has a point. Check out warm weather prisons. No real booze allowed, but they got pruno.

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  • Zarry wrote...
    move already
    November 19, 2012 4:36 pm
    If you're going to whine about the weather, I'm quite sure Washington state won't miss you.
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  • RichardCheese wrote...
    .
    November 19, 2012 5:51 pm
    preach on brother luke. it's part of the psyche here to say you like the rain.
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