Usually this time of year winter is still in its death throes. There’s mud up to your ankles, it frosts over at night, and there’s one last snow storm mid-to-late-April. Spring is not a pleasant season in Alaska. But, following the trend of strange, strange weather that started last summer, it is already dry outside. Leaves are coming out, bugs are buzzing, and today it reached over 75 degrees. And as my dad pointed out that’s as hot as the hottest day in summer last year. It looks like the end of May and it just feels wrong, like somebody mixed up the seasons’ schedules.
All the strange weather started last summer. As far as I can remember last spring was fairly normal, though the last snow storm was a bit more impressive then usual. Summer was cool and wet, raining more often then not. I’ve seen summers where it has rained more, but it was still unusual in that the warm days weren’t all that warm. And then in fall the winds didn’t pick up to strip the trees of leaves, so the trees were golden straight into the end of October. And this last winter has been the most aggressively cold winter I can remember. And now it’s 75 in April and the last snow fall came down as heavy rain. I remember waking up and wondering how I managed to skip forward to July, because it sounded and felt like July rain.
I suppose that’s climate change for you. Weather changes, climates change, and the earth keeps spinning. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, even though it makes for wonderful walking weather. I’m still wishing for one last deep freeze to set back the mosquitoes.