FIGHT: Name the worst month

[CliffFletcher]

This November talk is crazy. It’s dark, but otherwise quite pleasant. Still some leaves on the trees. Grass is green. You can go for a walk and the sidewalks are usually clear. Autumn has a nice vibe.

March or April are clearly worse. Slush, ice, freezing-thawing. Treacherous sidewalks either covered in puddles or slick with ice. Brown gravel and grit everywhere. It’s ugly as ####. Cars are filthy - you can go through a bottle of wiper fluid in a week. And it’s been 5+ months since you could walk around in shorts or comfortably sit on a patio.

If you invited friends from overseas to Calgary and wanted them to come away thinking the city is a bleak, charmless, ####hole, you’d tell them to come in March or April.

[Drak]

Here’s my list from worst to best. This applies to the west coast Vancouver Island.

November - The absolute worst. Time shift sucks. Dark. Dreary. Cold sets in. Non stop rain. Doug fir needles and fir cones constantly all over the driveway. High winds. Nothing cool going on. The most depressing month of the year for me in these parts.

January - New Years is cool but the rest of the month is pretty dull. Inch by inch the days start getting longer though and we often get random spring like conditions.

February - Tends to have the highest energy bill at my place. The water table gets pretty high and we get some water in the cellar.

October - I dig Halloween and my brother’s birthday is located here so that’s cool. But fking November is looking at me around the corner.

September - Historic iffy month, based on school coming back from a sweet summer and feeling a bit sad about that. Carries over to when my son was still in the public school system and it was time for him to go back. You also know things are moving toward darker days. The weather is often a tease with continued hot summer but it feels different and I start thinking November is right around the corner.

December - The holidays are hit and miss for me. Lately I’ve been more positive about it and it’s been less hectic. But never was a fan when the in-laws came up. Terrible energy and stressful. The lights all over the place are sweet, though.

March - On Van island March isn’t too bad overall. Spring is showing and things are starting to bloom. I start prepping the yard and start landscaping. Longer days cometh.

April - I like April. More activities like March. We get to play jokes on the 1st. Long days are back by then and spring is pretty much in full sesh. The vibrant green landscape is beautiful.

May - May is becoming warmer on average here. It often feels like summer starts here now with the shift in season. But it’s mid Spring. I love Spring. The problem is the years are going by fast now, and by May I’m thinking, wtf? The year is almost half over already?

August - Least favorite summer month now. We get a lot of fires that catch up by this month and we’ve had periods where there’s weeks of smoke blanketing out the sun. Bad air conditions and health hazard when this happens and it’s been happening a lot. Historically though it is a month of fond memories and usually when we go on a family vacation.

July - Summer is fully here. Lots of activity in July. My wife and son have birthdays pretty much back-to-back. Sometimes it can be too hot though. But it’s pretty relaxing. When the in laws aren’t here.

June - June is my favorite. It’s a mix of Spring, my favorite season, and the start of Summer. It’s also the month when my birthday comes into play. Although I’m getting older so that aspect of my birthday can fk right off; but the time with my family is awesome.

[Ryan Coke]

The only real debate is if it’s January or February. This rationalizing about November or March is just to distract yourself from the fact that January and February are so terrible. The only thing that makes those months decent is if you’re going somewhere warm on vacation.

Winter sucks.

[woob]

November. Time change, board meetings/strategy sessions, work always gets busy the last two months, and usually the start of actual winter.

I don't mind March/April, as you're starting to get those first looks of spring, you start seeing some of the birds coming back, things are just getting brighter.

[Fuzz]

It's nice that we can finally come together as a group and disagree on something. It was getting a little too UCB/Peter12 around here.

[_Q_]

Its definitely November.

Yes January and February suck, but the days are starting to get longer and you can do the outdoor winter stuff like skating and skiing. November literally has nothing going for it.

For me it's as follows:

1. November - see above
2. March - no winter activities, no holidays, just cold or slush every day.
3. January - coming down the holiday high, no holidays other than new year, but at least you're well rested and can go skating outside.
4. February - similar to January, but at least its short, the days are getting longer and theres a holiday in the middle of it.
5. December - Christmas makes it tolerable and winter is in full swing. Its a pretty fun month.
6. August - usually too hot and smoky most days. Its summer though, and the cooler evenings make August amazing when the smoke lets up.
7. April - weather is on and off, but the days are exactly the right length at this point. The +20 degree days that can come in the second half are incredible.
8. June - summer is more or less in full swing, however, the rain for most of the month puts a damper on things. Still, the grass is green, the days are long (probably too long) and everything feels alive.
9. May - the first half is typically just a carry over of April, but the second half usually has the most glorious weather of the year. Long days, crab apple blossoms, green grass ,birds chirping, temps in the mid to high 20s.
10. October - fall is in full swing, Halloween is a blast and the weather is usually decent, especially the first half.
11. July - this is peak summer in Calgary. Super long days, Canada day, stampede, green grass, smoke usually hasn't gotten bad yet.
12. September - temperatures are perfect. Days are the right length. Autumn foliage is at its peak, smoke is usually finished.

[powderjunkie]

Jan 15-Feb 14 is the worst span of 30 days.

November only sucks because of the time change. Which we should do away with. Maybe this year is a bit unusual, but weather has been pretty awesome with no change in sight.

[Sr. Mints]

Ah, good. I’ve long had a grievance with a peculiar stretch of time that refuses to sit neatly within a single calendar month. May 23 to June 6 - I can’t stand it. Truly loathe it.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Jan 15-Feb 14 is the worst span of 30 days.

November only sucks because of the time change. Which we should do away with. Maybe this year is a bit unusual, but weather has been pretty awesome with no change in sight.

Yeah, but the November time change is the "good one". I mean, sure, they're both dumb, but the spring forward is much more disruptive. Another strike for March!

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yeah, but the November time change is the "good one". I mean, sure, they're both dumb, but the spring forward is much more disruptive. Another strike for March!

It's the good one but also the depressing one. Sun is already setting before 5pm now for the rest of the month. Morning light is nice I guess, except this week its been pretty grey most days. I'd rather have an hour of darkness with all the hope and uncertainty of a nice day to come than having those hopes immediately extinguished amidst a canvas of cruel, demoralizing, lifeless skies!

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

Ah, good. I’ve long had a grievance with a peculiar stretch of time that refuses to sit neatly within a single calendar month. May 23 to June 6 - I can’t stand it. Truly loathe it.

Thats an oddly specific and otherwise pretty decent time of year, did you lose someone around then?