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| Photo by Thomas S. Mann |
When I started writing this column on Thursday, February 23, it was a bright, sunshine-y 60
degrees outside. Later that day the temperature hit a high of 66. If it is Friday afternoon as you are reading this, it failed to hit the predicted high of 75 degrees, due to a cooling rainshower in the afternoon. But it was still a good 15 degrees warmer than the expected average for this date.
According to my favorite weather bloggers, the CapitalWeather Gang, the unusually mild winter we're having is more typical of Charlotte, NC. And they say that's "pathetic." In fact, they are currently running a poll asking for your vote of which is more pathetic: Winter in Washington this year, or the performance of the Wizards. To vote go to: http://wapo.st/Auuftx
I usually like and trust the Capital Weather Gang (my go-to weather people once Verizon axed the whimsical Neal Pizzano and colleagues who made up the cast of the former Verizon Weather Line at 202-936-1212), but I must part company with anyone who would be so ungrateful for the past three months of blue skies and balmy breezes as to whine about our "snow futility" and characterize our city as a "snow underachiever." Do they really think we'd be better off with weeks of unplowed streets, followed by ankle-deep slush puddles, and treacherously invisible ice-patched pavement? These may be the expected sights in DC between December and February, but that doesn’t make them any more desirable.
What's wrong with getting a little break this year? It’s not as
if we live in a ski-resort-dependent economy. Just the opposite: a light dusting can shut everything down in DC (except for the stores selling toilet paper, milk, and snow shovels). If you seriously feel you're missing out on snow sports this year, by all means, take a vacation to someplace that has real snow and doesn't need to manufacture it. I hear the Rockies are full of it. And the good part is, you can fly home without worrying that your hometown airport will be socked in.
My only qualm about this abnormally warm winter is that
the skewed temperatures will continue through spring, and by April it will be
in the eighties, and by June, it will hit a hundred. Or might there be some
meteorological karmic payback, in the form of ice and snow in March? What if the the cold weather we were supposed to have here on the east coast ended up in Europe; that could explains the brutally cold temperatures and excessive snowfall they're. Just take a look at the ice in the canals of Venice. Here's a slide-show of some other parts of Europe (for those who miss the wintry scenes).
But on the grassy banks of the Potomac, the daffodils are in bloom!
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Still Life With Robin is published on Fridays on the Cleveland Park Listserv and All Life Is Local.
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