Tag Archives: weather

Spring, sprung much earlier than usual

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The calendar tells me that winter remains in effect around Washington. And yet temperatures today hit 81 degrees at National Airport, while at home I found myself distracted by the sight of buds on the trees around our house between doing what I think is my earliest ever weeding of the yard.

Buds on a cherry tree, with leaf-flecked grass in the background.

Old photos taken around this time in February tell a different story. We’ve had snowfall–enough for cross-country skiing, although in some years that’s required placing a sufficiently low value on one’s x-c skis–as late as mid March and not that long ago.

Today’s unseasonably warm temperatures and the too-early harbingers of spring that preceded it could be just a random roll of the climate dice that will be undone next winter. That is my hope, because I like living in a place with distinct seasons and even the occasional blizzard. I would be sad if I had to retire our snow shovels, notwithstanding how shoveling the sidewalk can be exhausting, back-aching work.

It’s supposed to get cold again next week, and Saturday it may yet snow. But if it doesn’t, at least we’ve already had some actual, paltry accumulation this year–which I think elevates 2023 over 2020 even before we get into everything else that went wrong three years ago.

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Things I have learned from life on the cold front

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The coldest January Washington’s seen in almost 20 years is finally coming to a close, and it may even crack 50 degrees over the weekend. That makes this a good time to go over some lessons learned over the past few weeks of polar vortex-level chill.

Cold thermometer• Pipes can and do freeze in these conditions. If you’re really lucky, the burst pipe is almost directly over the sump pump, the plumber lives in your neighborhood, the repairs only run $600 and change, and your power tools still work after being rained upon indoors.

• Even after living nine and a half years in a 94-year-old house, you can still discover new leaks that let cold air seep into the basement.

• It’s easier to spy the biggest of those gaps from inside the basement when the ground is paved with snow and the sun’s shining down on it.

• Your mother was on to something when she told you to wear a hat any time you go outside in the winter.

• Thermal underwear generate a crazy amount of static electricity that, when layered under khakis, causes them to wrinkle in weird ways. Which I am okay with, given the circumstances.

• The less-than-stylish flannel or fleece-lined pants you can get from L.L. Bean and elsewhere are a good thing to have bought before this month. 

• Capital Bikeshare still works in the cold–and since biking provides more exercise than walking, you can warm up a little in the process. But fitting a helmet over a warm hat is difficult.

X-country skis• Cross-country skis work even better–and when it’s this cold, the snow makes a delightful sort of squeak. (Pity the roughly four inches we got on the 21st only allowed me to do laps in a nearby park instead of, say, skiing across the Key Bridge like I did after the “snowpocalypse” of 2010.)

• The Potomac River frozen over is a beautiful sight. Try not to miss it.

• Working from home when it’s below 15 degrees outside constitutes an excellent excuse to make a grilled-cheese sandwich for lunch (jazz it up with a little caramelized onions or sautéed apple slices) and wash that down with hot chocolate.