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One of the best things about co-running ye olde Milwaukee Record is that no two days are alike. One day may involve writing about new Milwaukee music and doing a radio spot with WUWM, and the next may involve touring a crumbling mall and editing a 2,000-word article about yellow-rumped warblers. But there’s one thing that remains consistent from day to day: receiving 8,000 emails where Milwaukee or Wisconsin appears on a ridiculous online list or is featured in a dubious online “study.”
You know the types. “Milwaukee is the 17th best city in the U.S. for walking your cat!” “Wisconsin is the 3rd happiest state on every other Tuesday !” “Find out Milwaukeeans’ favorite character in the Sonic The Hedgehog video game franchise!” (Spoiler: Sonic.) Sometimes we write about/mock these things in our “Great Job, Milwaukee/Wisconsin!” series. Other times we send these emails directly to the trash and patiently await the next list about Wisconsin’s most Instagrammable apple orchards, compiled by a life insurance website or a windows and roofing company for some reason.
But occasionally one of these random web-fillers piques our interest. And recently, my interest was SUPER piqued when this email appeared in my inbox: “Tuesday, July 16th Forecasted as Wisconsin’s Most Perfect Evening of the Year.”
Say whaaat? A “perfect evening”? Coming up in about two weeks? During a weeklong Milwaukee event that will likely send me packing to the soothing climes of Anywhere Else, Wisconsin? [UPDATE: I’m sticking around.] Sounds good! CLICK.
Okay, so there’s a slightly goofy caveat. The study—sponsored by a cabinet manufacturer, natch—uses “publicly available weather data from WeatherSpark” to identify “the most perfect evening in each state for alfresco dining.” The ideal time to eat outside, apparently, is when it’s around 75 degrees and there’s little chance of rain. And the ideal time to eat outside in Wisconsin, apparently, will be Tuesday, July 16.
“According to the weather data,” reads the study, “Wisconsinites are likely to experience their most perfect evening of summer on Tuesday, July 16th. On this night, the temperature is expected to hover around 72°F with a 17.5% chance of rain.”
Like I said before, these lists and studies are almost always useless, but this one seems…nice? Hopeful? Like a small glint of light in an increasingly dark world? I dunno. Sitting outside on a 72-degree night sounds pretty swell to me.
And thus my decision to share this temperate and non-rain-soaked news with you, dear readers. Let’s all get out there on July 16 and have a perfect evening! Whether you’ll be eating outdoors (on deck furniture lovingly manufactured by Fabuwood), drinking outdoors, or just sitting around and thinking about stuff outdoors, it’ll be miles better than doomscrolling on your phone or deleting 17 emails about the best U.S. city to find personalized leather wallets or whatever.
Hopefully it won’t rain!
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