The First Day of Spring

March is rolling in like a sleepy lion this morning on the first day of the spring.  Well, it's the first day of the Meteorological spring (March 1 - May 31) and even though we're still 20 days away from the vernal equinox I still refer to this day as the first day of spring.  If it's good enough for meteorologists, it's good enough for me.  

While yesterday saw blizzards up in Minnesota and devastating killer tornadoes in Southwest Missouri and Southern Illinois, here in Eastern Iowa the weather couldn't make up its mind as to what it wanted to do.  We had a high yesterday of 53 degrees - and that was around 5:30 in the morning.  But the wind picked up and we had gusts approaching 50 miles an hour at times throughout the day.  Coupled with falling temperatures and a precipitation remnant of the back side of the store that affected the Midwest yesterday, at 5:30 p.m. we had a temperature of 33 degrees with heavy wet snow.  Thankfully, it was a fast moving front and most of the wet snow melted by 7 p.m.

This morning is starting out cool and cloudy, but the winds that howled throughout the area yesterday have subsided and we're supposed to have partly cloudy skies later on with light westerly winds and a high in the upper 40's.  So if we didn't have the Leap Day yesterday, then March would have come in like an extremely pissed off lion.  

But I can't really complain - we've had a great winter around here.  That is, if you're like me who hates snow and cold.  Compared to the last couple of winters, it has been very pleasant around here for the past three months.  We've had moderate temperatures with little snow fall since December 1.  What snow we did get, it was usually gone within a week thanks to a consistent jet stream that brought in warm Pacific air from the west coast.  Oh, we did have some cold days, but they certainly didn't last.

Up north, they didn't have the large snowfalls that contribute to spring flooding on the Mississippi River.  Last year, we had about three weeks of flooding thanks to record amounts of snow in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  It could have been worse as cold temperatures in late March slowed the melting process and the record floods they were predicting only became a nuisance for the flood warrior veterans in the Quad Cities.  (To see my entry and pictures of the Flood of 2011, click here.)  This spring, the National Weather Service is forecasting a below normal chance of flooding along the Upper Mississippi (above St. Louis).  But in the past we've also seen sustained spring rains raise the river level quite quickly, so we always have to keep a leery eye on the Mississippi.   

With the lack of snow, we were worried how it would affect our plants and rose bushes that we have in our yard.  We did put mulch around the base of our 27 rose bushes, as well as some of the new bushes and a tree that we planted over the past year.  We hoped that the snow would help insulate the roots against any extreme cold, but we haven't had the snow - nor have we had any really cold sustained temperatures.  In fact, we've got a couple rose bushes on the east side of our house where we're already beginning to see chutes of growth coming out of them.  Many of our rose bushes didn't lose the green on their base stalks during the winter.  We always worry when April comes around hoping that the roses survived the winter.  This year, I don't we have to worry about that.

That is, unless something catastrophic comes about over the next 45 days. Catastrophic, as in sustained freezing temperatures that could damage buds and chutes on the rose bushes like it did about four years ago after temperatures reached the 80's in March, but went sub-freezing for three straight days in early April.  We lost about 8 rose bushes after that little stretch of abnormally cold weather that year.  But, there wasn't much we could do.  Mother Nature was throwing curve balls all over the place that particular spring.  

This year, we're hoping that we don't have that problem.  After a little weather system comes back through the Midwest this weekend, promising to dump more snow over Western and Northern Iowa and points north and east, we're supposed to be back in the upper 40's by Monday and into the low 60's on Tuesday.  But, just like any spring we've had in the past, the warm weather won't stick around.  It's only supposed to be 52 on Wednesday.

However, we know we've dodged some major bullets this winter.  As my grandma always said, "There's always one last big one (as in snow storm) out there before spring really comes."  And living in Iowa I know that adage is more right than wrong the majority of the time.  We could easily see a big snow storm come our way, even with the grass becoming green and trees beginning to bud.  But hopefully sooner than later we'll be able to see our rose bushes look this way once again.

Comments

[Steph's Mom]

We have had what I would call a wonderful winter. Not having to worry about floods is a good thing. But your right in that it could flood with heavy rains and that we always seem to have one big snow before spring really comes.

[Cindy White]

Lovely Will. Makes me a little homesick.