We didn’t need a weatherman to tell us that December has been unusually cold. So it was not at all surprising when we recently read that this has been the coldest start to December in our area in 17 years.
We’ve been pretty fortunate in our little corner of the world to have had mild Decembers for quite a while. Winter isn’t that tough to take when it’s only the months of January and February that dish out wintry weather.
We recall that even the Snowmageddon Winter of 2015 was not really all that bad. We had about six weeks of record-breaking snowfall (115 inches), but that was it (although the mounds of snow lingered until well into the spring on playgrounds and parking lots).
Last winter was oppressive for most of January and February. The daily high temperatures barely broke 30 and the wind chills every morning were in the single digits. But we had plenty of sunshine and that made our daily run on the sandbar near our home (at low tide) easy-enough to take.
We would even go so far as to say that enduring six or seven weeks of blustery winter days makes us feel alive and truly appreciative of the nicer weather when it arrives.
But these past few weeks of below-normal temperatures sinceThanksgiving have broken the recent pattern of easing us into winter. Winter’s grip already feels oppressive, thanks to the cold and the constant winds that have sent the wind chills dipping into the low single (and even below zero) digits. In addition, the sun has been absent more often than not.
And with our heating bills already going through the roof, spring seems like a long, long time away.