Ahira's Hangar

A companion to the winter thread.

Today we turned off the furnace and opened the windows to get rid of a winter's worth of stale air.

Yesterday I saw the first bumble bees of the spring, flying around in some crocus beds.

have not run into any mosquitoes yet, but they will probably not be far behind.

Here in the mid-Atlantic, the way it usually works is that we turn off the furnace one day and turn on the a/c the next day. This week does not disappoint -- two nights ago the low was in the 40s, and today the high was around 80.

But don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining about the weather this week! Better this than snow! <shudder>

Bumble bees already buzzing around? Wow. Not here yet, I don't think. I'd love to check out the park to see if there are any, but Good Friday's forecast calls for a whole lotta rain...changing to snow after midnight. Could be flurries Saturday. Wacky Winnipeg weather in action! Hey, I'm glad for the rain - it helps wash away all the sand and grit from winter. But looks like it'll be a colder long weekend than I had been hoping for.

And here winter is inexorably approaching...

--A

Yeah, what he said

I promise I'll continue to read the winter thread whenever y'all post there...
Spring is definitely here! My flu or whatever it was last week has now settled into my chest.
A sure sign of my tree and pollin allergies...
Time to break out the homeopathic tinctures for an immunity system boost.
At least the fever is completely gone.

Glad your fever is gone, Menolly!
But now I got spring fever...come on spring, come out to play!

No winter here, ever.

Spring? Well, my mango tree is in full bloom.

You tropical southerners

Being in the southern hemisphere, obviously the further north you go, the hotter it gets...

Anyway, it's been a stable autumn so far here, temps around 20C most days, give or take a few degrees. One day so far where we had about 5mm of rain, the rest just sun. Not good for the garden, water consumption etc, but I'm sure we'll get some soon...

Same-ish. Temps in the low to mid 20's. Had about a week of unseasonal overcast, sunny again though.

--A

I thought I loved spring...but I'm beginning to wonder. What do we get? Wet snow in March that clings to everything. Mountains of dirty parking lot snow that, when melted, leave behind grit and sand that get blown around like crazy by the winds of April, which is happening right now. It's awful for someone like me who wears contacts. Just one stray particle feels like a nail is stabbing my eye. Aesthetically, the city also looks the worst during this time: the trees are still bare, and the grass is a dull brown. There's litter all around - urban detritus that had been hidden from sight by snow during the winter months, but now revealed in all its ugly glory...along with the aforementioned dirt mountains.

Also, spring is that weird in-between state of temperatures: it gets warm enough during the day that I can take off my jacket, yet it's still cold enough at night that I still have to have heat in my apartment.

Uh, other than that...spring's wonderful!

And that means it must be cold!

--A

Ew! I've never really thought about what would happen to all that snow from winter. I guess I assumed it would just melt and disappear

Like Moonwatcher said, the huge piles (a couple of stories tall in some cases) in the parking lots get covered with exhaust and dirt. All of that nasty stuff is in the parking lots when the snow finally melts. And all of the garbage and downed tree branches and "stuff "gets covered by the snow so no one sees it to pick it up. When the spring comes everyone has to go around and pick up the winter debris...(it is especially bad for dog owners ).

I'll stick to the sub-tropics, thanks.

--A