Please allow me to interject my feelings about Mother Nature

I remember Richmond winters being pretty dismal, lots of gray and overcast, but we sure as heck didn't get as much snow and cold weather as it seems you do now.

 

We usually have a few spells of warmer weather mixed in, which helps mitigate the dreariness, like the random 75-degree day in February. Hasn't happened this year. This has been one of the colder winters I've experienced in central Virginia. Definitely have to take advantage of the nice days when they come.

 

Meanwhile in Houston... We're probably going to hit 80 degrees today. Last week, it was 10 to 15.

 

Yes, I fondly remember those days, sitting on the porch of my fraternity, looking across the street at the Robins Center while contemplating the racetrack oval on a cold can (or six) of National Boh after another successful trip on the mean streets of the Westham Parkway area to the 7-Eleven at the Ridge Road Shopping Center. My senior year was the nicest weather in my four years at Three Chopt Tech, and I definitely took full advantage.

I live in a great place, but I still absolutely love the West End of Richmond.

 

It hit 70 here today, but the 10 mph wind out of the north made it not quite as nice as it looked. It was still nice to be outside in the sun.
It's supposed to begin raining tomorrow night and rain for at least the next 10 days.
I wonder if that Ark in Kentucky actually floats.

 

Good God, it's Feb. 25 and I'm sitting on the back porch in shorts. Yeah, it's going to pour buckets for a week, but for one glorious afternoon I can see spring looming on the horizon.

 

First signs of our annual tulips have arrived. Should see the first color in about a week. Red? Orange? Yellow? We never know.

 

Had a tiny bit of a letdown at the DQ drive thru wondering why they hadn’t brought out butterscotch dipped cones for the summer yet. Then I remembered it was Feb. 25. 75 degree days will play tricks on your quarantine brain.

 

We've had what felt like a cold winter in Mississippi. Lots of overcast days in the 40s that reminded me of the Northeast more than the Deep South, and then capped off by what amounted to an 8-day-long ice storm last week that shut down the entire state.
Then the freeze broke on Sunday and we launched straight into spring. We've got some rain coming in, but the temperature has been in the 60s and even low 70s all week, and looks like it will stay there through at least next week. If last week was the trade-off for bypassing that horrendous late winter freeze-fry-storm-freeze cycle, then I can live with that.

 

And Denver will continue to face water shortages than will be even worse in the future. Most climate models have the temperature rising by about 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2050. As a rule of the thumb temperatures increase by 3.5 degrees for a 1,000 foot change in elevation. So there will be less and less snowpack.

 

Won't stop anyone from continuing to ascend 14ers. But maybe they'll buy more Gatorade instead of filling their bottles with tap water ...