If seasons were sentient beings, this winter would be a most indecisive creature.
Saturday night I had a near-breakdown waiting for Summer to do her business while an icy wind ripped through me, making the perhaps 10-degree night feel more like 20 below. I collapsed in a heap when I came inside.
Sunday the sun was shining and the temperature was nearly 50. Today’s high is forecast at 20. They’re predicting a major snowstorm for Tuesday. The fact that the first official is a month away is a source of some comfort.
I am hoping against hope that this week’s snowstorm is the last blast of winter and an harbinger of early spring; we always get a last blast storm just before the warm weather takes hold. The all-time worst was the April 13-15 snowstorm of 2018, when 30 inches of snow fell in a couple of days. It would be a blessing for that last blast to come during the last week of February.
It’s not an impossible dream. I remember when a colleague was able to take his sailboat out on the bay on Feb. 29, just to say he once did because the weather cooperated that year. It was 80 degrees on the first day of spring in March 2012. How about a repeat as a 10th anniversary celebration?
We’re not supposed to see 30 degrees again for a couple of weeks, actually, so Sunday’s glimpse of warmer weather was a mirage. Still, a guy can dream …