…and this is a 
Rumors of Spring
Category: Local
Posted on: April 3, 2007 9:00 AM, by PZ Myers
So I got up this morning and looked out my front window, and this is what I saw:
Then I looked out the back door, and it wasn't any better (as if I'd expected the weather to be localized to only the northeast half of town):
I hadn't been paying any attention to the weather reports lately — in the Spring we only have to worry about tornadoes, usually, and the predictions for those are mostly useless — so I hadn't expected Winter to be reborn. We've got 5 or 6 inches of snow out there, with a couple more on the way. And everything had been so naked and brown just yesterday!
Comments
Flying the Jolly Roger.....Sweeeeeet.
Posted by: MG | April 3, 2007 9:10 AM
We fly the pirate flag as a purely festive, seasonal thing -- I only put it up Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 3, 2007 9:17 AM
NCAA finals time, and you did not expect this sort of weather...
If my (selective) memory serves me right, in the balmy southern state of Iowa, early April always marked the return of Father Frost ;)
Well, here, we have mid to high 50s in central europe, so no complaining. Enjoy the snowball fights...
Posted by: TheJerrylander | April 3, 2007 9:31 AM
I had taken the unwillingness to assume that the wheather is identical at front door and back door to be typical of cats. Several successive cats have asked me to let them out of the front door after concluding that the weather at the back door was too wet and windy for any self-respecting cat to be out in. Of course, they were highly insulted by the wheather at the front door too. The human should do something about this!
Posted by: Heleen | April 3, 2007 9:33 AM
So what about global warming? Huh??!! OBVIOUSLY there can't be global warming if there's still SNOW & ICE!!!
Posted by: Ethyl | April 3, 2007 9:33 AM
That sucks for the birds that had already started to nest. Do any ornithologists (or more serious birders than I) on here know if a nest in mid-incubation can recover from a sudden snowfall like that?
Around here (northern Indiana) it's still pleasantly springy, and I'm expecting to start seeing the first waterfowl-lings in a couple weeks or so...
Posted by: cbutterb | April 3, 2007 9:35 AM
The easter bunny is gunna freeze his aspidistra off.
Posted by: beepbeepitsme | April 3, 2007 9:37 AM
Who or what was naked and brown?
Posted by: Gray Lensman | April 3, 2007 9:49 AM
Stop it before it gets to southern Illinois!
Posted by: Frank Anderson | April 3, 2007 10:21 AM
The ground. I noticed that. My wife keeps telling me it'll go green with the rain, but I'm still waiting. In the meantime, I must be turning American because now - when I look at TV shows from the old country - I notice how green it looks.
Snow's fun, though
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | April 3, 2007 10:22 AM
I feel PZ is mising a trick with his Jolly Roger.
Back in the second world war it used to be a tradition for British submarines when returning from patrol to fly a Jolly Roger with smsbols such torpedoes, or a gun, or a a dagger for special ops, indicating what successes they had.
Maybe PZ could add a dunce's cap for each creationist he shoots down. Might need a bigger flag though.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | April 3, 2007 10:25 AM
I continue to wear a jacket. I take it off when I go outside, though: It's only office weather that's unpredictable and often cold.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | April 3, 2007 10:55 AM
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | April 3, 2007 10:55 AM
Ian said:
"Hard to shoot down something that never flew in the first place."
Fair point, can we make that sunk without trace after failing to float after being launched ?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | April 3, 2007 10:59 AM
It's been getting close to 90 degrees here, in southeast Georgia, lately. I envy you.
Posted by: Steve Sutton | April 3, 2007 11:29 AM
If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS???
Posted by: Joshua | April 3, 2007 11:56 AM
While I don't envy you PZ, I would like to mention it is a nice 80 degrees here in Morgantown, WV. Too bad the nice weather isn't going to last. The prediction for Thursday through Sunday is.. snow. Imagine that.
Posted by: Jon | April 3, 2007 1:00 PM
It's 78 here in Austin and we're supposed to hit 88 according to the forecast for today. If it gets that hot, the wife's threatening to turn on the A/C for the first time this year.
There must be a front coming b/c we're back down to 72 for a high tomorrow and 68 for a high on Saturday.
I don't know what I'd do without 20 degree temperature swings. Ahhh...Texas.
Posted by: ttrentham | April 3, 2007 1:19 PM
Heleen -
I too had a cat in mind reading PZ's post, but it was the one
from Robert Heinlein's _A door into Summer_
Posted by: GuLi | April 3, 2007 1:31 PM
I moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles two years ago. Snow in April is one thing I don't miss at all.
Posted by: markbt73 | April 3, 2007 1:51 PM
My daffodils are blooming here in the balmy southeast Costa Del Sol of Minnesota... but up the road Eau Claire has a snow advisory. Interesting stuff, weather.
Posted by: MReap | April 3, 2007 2:03 PM
Forecast today in the stinkin' desert:
This Afternoon: Sunny, with a high near 91. West southwest wind around 10 mph. Ninety-one [BLEEPING] degrees in APRIL!
I have NEVER had to get the cooler going in April, and I've lived here since I was 4.
Posted by: BruceJ | April 3, 2007 3:34 PM
PZ, what're you doing? Of course the weather turned colder--remember, global warming is caused by the drop in the number of pirates over the years. Hang up a pirate flag for a period of time and you've got to expect a cold snap!
Posted by: Leon | April 3, 2007 4:24 PM
We're getting snow over the weekend. The LONG weekend. The one that is supposed to be all about happy bunnies hopping around in the grass, not trudging through the snow...
Posted by: Eva | April 3, 2007 4:42 PM
Yup, we got about the same last night here in Calgary. I think spring was last week, when we hit 17°C at one point. Damn glad I'm heading to Egypt in a week. Why, oh why, do I live in the Great White North? Snow is a four-letter word beginning with 's'....
Posted by: Randola | April 3, 2007 5:30 PM
Man, do I envy you. Sure, it's a bit late, but there were a grand total of 2 days with any snow on the ground in Vienna this winter and 0 in Paris, and I feel betrayed.
Posted by: David Marjanović | April 3, 2007 6:40 PM
Eva:
Thbbt. At least you have a long weekend.
Posted by: Rey Fox | April 3, 2007 6:53 PM
NY is supposed to get lake effect snow this weekend, just in time for the big holiday to herald the arrival of spring. When I complain about the winters, people always tell me about the year it snowed on Mother's Day.
Posted by: Carlie | April 3, 2007 7:44 PM
PZ - I feel your pain up here in Fargo.
*SIGH*
Posted by: Greg | April 3, 2007 9:11 PM
Why, oh why, do I live in the Great White North? Snow is a four-letter word beginning with 's'....
My solution: It never snows after the vernal equinox. It's "fluffy rain".
Posted by: Graculus | April 3, 2007 9:22 PM
In this part of Ohio the day began with sunshine and warmed into the seventies. It is ending with thunderstorms and rapid cooling. Tomorrow's forecast to be in the low forties, with cold rain. Ah, so. Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | April 3, 2007 9:32 PM
Oh, come on. "Spring" is just a joke here. It can last as little as a few days before the transition from little, itty-bitty, annoying frosts (oh, say, like the sub-freezing current temperatures in April, coupled with oppressive overcast and snow flurries) to 90's F temperatures. When it behaves otherwise, it's glorious for a few weeks. Unless it's wet. During such a season, the mosquitoes render the outdoors uninhabitable outside of smoking pyres of repellents.
The same temperature regime, inverted, applies to "fall".
What a place to be (having grown up in south Georgia). It's certainly ok from many other points of view, though. I Minnesota.
Posted by: beccarii | April 3, 2007 10:25 PM
Ok,here's a glitch that I've seen before. My earlier note ended, online, with "I Minnesota". That makes no sense. The actual line was "I (carat - the symbol) love (carat - the symbol) Minnesota". I have a passing interest in the reason why scienceblogs makes items that are bracketed with such characters invisible, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time considering it. Perhaps I should use [] or {}. Or - perhaps scienceblogs should make its system a bit more flexible. I have a low tolerance for systems that do not automatically correct for such "errors" or ask the submitter to correct them - I submit, on a fairly frequent basis, items to other fora that do have automated responses to such problems. Scienceblogs is a bit deficient in comparison.
Posted by: beccarii | April 3, 2007 10:52 PM
We got gipped in the twin cities. Just a dusting and it's cold. You can still see the newly greened-up grass through the white snow...
Posted by: Greg Laden | April 4, 2007 9:31 AM
I'm down here in Ohio (Dayton area).
Back in early January we had several weeks with highs near 70F; birds were singing and displaying, and the daffodils came up and the roses sprouted leaves.
Then it got below 0F for several nights, then there was several inches of snow.
Then the last two weeks it has been highs in the 60s and 70s. The birds were singing and flowers were blooming (the daffodils looked pretty ragged with frozen tips). The roses had dead branches from the previous freeze, but were putting out leaves on the lower branches.
Now it's going to be a week or more of low temperatures in the low to mid 20s.
I think I'm going to have to buy some new roses.
Posted by: khan | April 4, 2007 12:45 PM
I used to have a cat that we referred to as Bitch Kitty.
She would try one door and not like the weather; when I opened the second door and the weather was still bad she would turn and hiss at me.
Posted by: khan | April 4, 2007 12:48 PM
Khan:
Cats in comment #4 and cat in comment #6 show the same behaviour then. Does any other cat behave in the same way?
Apart from the question how general this cat behaviour is, why should cats blame their human?
Posted by: Heleen | April 5, 2007 6:54 AM
Hey, imagine how they felt around Houston TX, and southwest of Houston such as Victoria, when such scenes appeared on Dec. 25, 2004.
http://www.uhv.edu/flame/February_2005/NEWS_Snowfall.htm
Posted by: John H. Morrison | April 10, 2007 5:07 AM