Mother Nature has been displaying an epic identity crisis. I have whiplash from the see-sawing between winter and spring that we’ve experienced over the last 10 days.
My favorite was last Saturday (4/2) when we woke up to a half-inch of snow on the ground. On Friday the high had been a fairly-mild 50F degrees. The forecast called for “snow showers through 9 a.m.” but that’s not at all what happened. We were treated to a fierce battle of seasons. About every 10 minutes it was either bright and sunny with just a few puffy cumulus clouds in the sky or we experienced a blinding snowstorm—the kind that makes you grip the steering wheel tight with both hands because you can only see a few car lengths ahead of you. This went on for 5 or 6 hours. We were also under a high Wind Advisory throughout so the snow was flying horizontally and pelting people, vehicles and anything else in its path.
The following day it was payback time for spring. We enjoyed our highest temperature of the year so far—73F degrees, and the previous day’s snow seemed like some sort of freakish nightmare. My friend and I took a hike and saw our first Eastern Bluebird and Garter Snake of the year.
But that night the temperature fell 50 degrees (Milwaukee experienced a 20-degree drop in just 5 minutes). The next day winter took over again and the high temperature was the mirror image of the previous day. We could only squeak out 37F degrees.
Some of my spring-blooming plants had a little trouble holding on through all that foolishness. This daffodil’s stems got mushy from all the violent freezing and thawing, and a day after I snapped this photo the buds were drooping lifelessly from a soggy stem.
Thankfully winter may have had its last gasp. I see 50s in the forecast for this week and after that nothing but 60s for the rest of April. Bring it on!