On Virginia Beach Weather

I’d like to preface this column with the note that I am not a native of Virginia Beach.
In fact, I’ve only lived here for just over a decade.  That may sound like a long time to some folks, but compared to the “lifers” here, it’s not much at all.
I’m learning that being an “outsider” comes with a bit of perspective, too.
For one thing, the map bears a resemblance to my dinner last week.  No, I’m not trying to say I had a (very) irregularly shaped slice of pizza.  I was referring more specifically to the plateful of spaghetti noodles I unceremoniously dumped on the kitchen floor.  (If you’re unfamiliar, check Google Maps.  Just don’t get lost in your browser window.)
Whoever designed freeways in the shape of a circle, where the Westbound goes north and east and the Eastbound leads to somewhere in Ohio should be shot.
Further, street names should not change more than twice in a two-mile stretch of uneventful pavement where no mergers occur.  This happens disturbingly often in my city.  At first, in an effort to combat this challenge, I began giving people directions based off of restaurants.  This would have been a brilliant ploy, if the rest of the population of the area possessed my obsessively encyclopedic knowledge of eateries.
Sadly, the majority of them do not.  Which is probably better for their health, in the long run.
However, there is one thing I have not yet understood about the citizens of this fine area, and that is the seeming wonderment at the summertime weather.
I am sure that in other parts of the country, "summer at the beach" elicits visions of scantily-clad men and women bounding around the sand with happy smiles pasted on their faces in a seemingly endless string of perfectly sunny days. I suppose that oceanfront fantasy exists somewhere on this planet of ours, but Virginia Beach ain't it. Every day between May 15th and September 3rd, between the hours of 2:45pm and 3:15pm, there is a 50% (or greater) chance of a torrential downpour. It's like clockwork, and has absolutely no bearing on what the weather was before the pummeling rain, nor will it have any effect on the weather after said storm. Yet I still hear “lifers” of the area exclaim their surprise that it rained.  Worse, that their windows were down.  One person in particular, whose name shall remain withheld to protect any hint of public image they may retain, has made that comment nearly every time it rains in the summer over the last five years I’ve known them.
One might think that a person would figure out the pattern after having their interior soaked thirty or forty times each summer.  Of course, every time I start heading down that train of thought, the conductor stops, asks me for my ticket, and politely reminds me that someone has to be posting those YouTube videos where people do incredibly stupid things.... I just never thought I’d actually know one.
I only hope they have a really nice wet/dry shop vac at home.