Spring arrives in Iowa today at 12:32 p.m., signaling the end of one of the longest and more brutal winters we've had in the Midwest. But as we got up this morning, you couldn't tell that today was the first day of Spring. We were greeted with over two inches of heavy wet snow that had fallen overnight.
This was on the heels of 60 degree days the past week. In fact, it was just above 60 here in the Quad Cities yesterday. I had the windows open and a nice breeze coming in. I even cooked out on the grill last night. We'd been joking with people all week long that we brought the spring-like temperatures back from Hawaii with us. But it began to get colder in the early evening last night and you could see a big bank of dark clouds off to the west just before sunset. Yes, winter was trying to hang on.
We knew it was coming - they'd been predicting a chance of snow all week long. When it was 57 and sunny here yesterday about 5 p.m., it was 31 in Des Moines and 33 up in Waterloo with both places reporting snow flurries. It was sort of misting when I went to bed last night and we both slept in this morning. When I got up, I looked out the bedroom blinds to see if it had snowed like they predicted. Cindy sleepily asked, "Did it snow?"
I said, "Oh, boy, did it snow!"
The good thing about it is that there's a lot of moisture content in the snow so it will probably melt when the temperatures rise above freezing this afternoon. And the pavement temps are above freezing so there's little shoveling or travel problems to be had. But in the meantime, it's actually pretty outside this morning with the wet snow plastering the branches of trees that are just beginning to bud out.
My grandmother used to say that we always get one last "big one" before Spring really takes over. I don't know if this qualifies as a big snow, but I'm hoping that this is the last we see of winter for the 2009-2010 season. The grass is already turning green, the bulbs that Cindy planted last fall are beginning to bust through the soil, our rose bushes are green and showing life at the base of their stems. I've even had to turn the air-conditioner on in the car because it got so warm as I was driving back from Chicago this week. After our trip to Hawaii I'm ready for warm weather. We don't need any more cold weather and snow.
(Update - Our winter weather lasted all of one day. By Sunday, the skies cleared and it warmed up to 50 degrees. Most of the snow that fell on Saturday was gone by Sunday afternoon. Monday, the skies will continue to be clear and temps should make it into the mid-to-upper 50's; and by Tuesday it will be in the low 60's. Spring is here.)
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