This is my big weather post for the winter. I haven’t spent too much time on the weather, so I’m just going to go for it.
The weather people have been using the term "Wintry Mix" in all it’s vague glory, but I really don’t think it’s accurate enough for what happened yesterday and people who haven’t gone through a winter hearing "Wintry Mix" don’t really know what it means. I’m opting to call it a precipitation square dance, since really it was snow, sleet, rain and hail taking turns, switching partners and do-si-doing throughout the day.
People tell me that this is "normal" for April, but I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s very much normal about going from 65 degrees to 2′ of snow in March and I certainly don’t think there’s much normal about building up to spring-like temperatures (in the actual season of spring) only to have it plummet that very night.
I’ve decided to not complain in earnest until it’s May and this is still happening, but I’ve been under the assumption that it’s going to snow every month, mid-month for the rest of my life (at least my life in Upstate NY).
What I find most interesting is the way people handle it around me. I may complain, but I still get out of bed and wait for the bus and go into work. I wear what I wear and I don’t let the weather have too much of an effect on my plans or whatever. I DO complain, but I complain about everything. I’m not happy without something to complain about. Anyway.
Few people seem to have noticed the once-monthly pattern that is being set. Fewer people are aware of the fact that the end-of-season sales don’t necessarily coincide with the actual end of the season. I bought my winter gear when the winter clearance sales happened. I can likely do the same this spring. But I’m not talking about actual purchases, I’m talking about mentality. I’m a practical kind of girl and made the decision as soon as the afternoons started getting warm that I’m not putting away my winter coat until it’s above freezing (and by a considerable margin) when I leave for work in the morning. I would rather have to carry home my bulky coat in the PM than shiver waiting for a bus. I can handle a slight burden, but discomfort is out of the question when it’s within my control.
As a result, I’m one of very few people wearing a weather-appropriate coat while people complain about how they put away all their winter clothes. Um… what? It hasn’t been consistently warm for even a week at any point in this calendar year. Are folks so focused on the calendar that they can’t seem to grasp that how you dress isn’t dependent of the month or even the day, but on whether or not it’s cold outside? I don’t get it. I really don’t.
But as unhappy about it as I am, I do get that we didn’t even HAVE a real winter until mid-January, so I can’t understand that it’s not so much a lingering winter as a late winter pushing itself into the wrong season. I’ve long believed that the seasons were shifting, which I suppose you could attribute to Global Warming. We’re so conditioned to believe that April is the real beginning of spring that I think we’re all rattled to our core when it doesn’t happen the way it’s "supposed" to.
I have decided, on a purely logical level to not get really upset about the "wrong" weather until May. If it snows again, or even square dances, on Mother’s Day I’m going to have to take some sort of action. I’m not entirely sure how to write a sharp note to Mother Nature, but rest assured I will feel compelled to do SOMETHING about the situation, regardless of how frivolous it winds up being.