by Sarah Hartley |

Every year, thousands of Missouri kids flock to Facebook and Twitter to express their distaste for Missouri’s erratic weather patterns. And every year, I want to say the same thing: so what?

There are many reasons that the irregularity in our state’s weather can be beneficial, or at the very least positive.

First of all, not many states get to witness the entire spectrum of seasons. California, for example, is only able to look forward to pretty much just three things each year: heat, swimming and frozen lemonade. While the people who live there strut around in shorts and t-shirts all 12 months of the calendar year, we get to dig out our jeans and sweatshirts for half of a year and experience the other side of mother nature.

The argument that it can be a pain putting away summer clothes one day only to get them out again the next is a pretty silly one, as there is an extremely obvious and practical solution; layering. Winter in Missouri is thankfully only blistering cold for about a month, so you can get away with wearing summer shirts under a sweater or a blazer for quite some time. It is much cuter, too, in my opinion.

In my closet, I personally like being able to have my jeans next to my skirts, and my coats next to my dresses. As our seasons do not last very long (70 degrees in November? What?), it does not matter that everything is together. It removes the haggle of having to organize everything and dig it all out every other month.

Second, our seasons are more than just rain or sunshine. They represent many traditions that would mean nothing without the crazy patterns of weather that coincide. I cannot imagine not being able to buy a hot chocolate at a Friday night football game in September, or not waking up to melted snow or the smell of rain in March and know that spring is on the way. Without this weather, there would be no real spirit for any holiday. When one thinks of Thanksgiving, they think of chilly mornings, and thankfully, Missouri’s weather provides that for us. And while everyone else is dreaming of a white Christmas, we get to actually live it.

Not to mention, snow days. There really is not anything better than waking up one random morning and seeing five inches of snow outside, with the radio announcing that school is canceled. What other state gets such sporadic surprises? Since our weather is not predictable, snow days can even occur in early March. I do not see why anybody would complain about that, because most of the time it is warm the next day anyway. Everybody wins when it comes to our weather.

Most importantly, our erratic weather lets us be smug and have superiority.

“Hi, I’m from Florida. I get to wear shorts on Christmas.”

“Yeah, well, I’m from Missouri. We get to experience all four seasons in one week.”

There is a clear winner here.