Spring?

The local weather forecast for today said it was to be sunny and moderately warm, between 6-8 degree C or about 44 to 48 degree F.  The heavy rains stopped early yesterday morning, and we're looking forward to a nice change of pace with a long sunny weekend.  It cannot be candy coated, the forecast really, really let us down today.

Just a brief prelude here for why a sunny day is so important.  The weather in greater Vancouver this time of year is just nuts.  For approximately four months Vancouverites have enjoyed cloudy, rainy weather and we've just about had it by now. We know we're about at the end and when a good day is promised, it better come through.  Some of the lucky, or is it smart, among us leave for sunnier spots this time of year to avoid the wait, a trip that might only be driving to Whistler to the top of the mountains where the sun is found.  But others of us stick it out all winter, and we really do get cranky about the whole gloomy atmospherics around us in late March if that gloom lingers too long.  We're all quite aware SPRING officially started on March 20.

So today, March 22 a full 48 hours after that officially start, some of us just completely and totally lost it.  Why?  Because the day started by having to get to work in a relatively heavy snowstorm.  (OK it wasn't like a real Prairie blowing wind and zero-visibility/whiteout thing, but it was heavy.  OK actually the snow in general hit the ground and melted shortly there after.  But hey, we're sick, sick, sick of winter!  No more snow is needed and BTW I removed my snow tires over 6 weeks ago.)   And someone should be warning the poor crocus, primroses and just-leafing-out tulips that they might need to hold off what with the potential of snowfall and freezing (clear skies = freezing temperatures).  But no one warns them and you can almost hear their little whimpers for help and see them shivering in the cold.  (Again, here I am complaining about winter and in the next sentence mentioning visible crocus, primroses and tulips; yes I know, the irony isn't lost on me.  Just remember I'm a bit testy right now.)

Additionally, I am well aware that I have relatives and friends who are digging themselves out of a real blizzard as I write this and here I am complaining about a bit of snow.  Aah, I get it, I've turned into a wimp about winter.

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Then all of a sudden around lunch time today, the clouds part, the sun breaks through as though its been waiting longer than it wanted to get to shine.  The sky becomes blue and, of course, any snow that might have survived for more than a few moments, melts away.  We all do our best to subdue our enthusiasm and keep checking the windows to make sure that orb in the sky will stick with us for just a bit longer today than say, yesterday.  And so it goes.  We are spoiled but most of us ignore that thought for now.

Here are a few photos that prove the weather today was truly bi-polar.  One of my colleagues, who is equally as sick of winter as the rest of us, decided in disgust this morning to actually photograph the snow.  Then later this afternoon she went back and caught the sun shining.  I'll let you do your own compare and contract on them.

Four on the left, this am, four on the right, this pm

So my fellow Vancouverites, just hang in there, don't go stir crazy about the weather.  If you don't like it right now, simply endure because within a half-day it will be completely different.  It's SPRING and you just can't count on it to be predictable.