I moved from the Seattle area to eastern Washington about ten years ago. When I first moved here, people said "oh, this isn't a normal winter." Summer came "Oh, this isn't a normal summer." Several more years went by, with some winters having no snow, others piled up to six feet. Some summers it was 100F for a month straight, others just a week. I finally came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as a normal year to my non-meteorologist experience, because the normal was spread over a decade or more. I've also come to the conclusion that there are a lot of micro-climates in the northwest, having observed that with mountains, water, prairie, rolling hills, etc all over the place the weather can change significantly within just a short drive.