Beware Fake Spring

You might be familiar with this scenario since it’s happened a few times already, barely days into March: You look at the weather forecast for the day, fully prepared to slink into your winter parka/sleeping bag for another day of biting cold weather. But something about this day is…different. It’s 60 degrees outside. You emerge outside, a little unsure and without a coat for the first time in months, poking your head out the door like Punxsutawney Phil, and before you know it you’re awash in a sidewalk sea of meteorologically confused people — someone in jorts next to someone sweating in a winter coat who didn’t get the memo.

You might spend this day in any number of ways — if you go to the park you’ll see throngs of people trying to make the most of it, setting up blankets and chairs and volleyball nets on the ground, thawing and muddy and largely grassless. Every restaurant will have thrown open their windows, beckoning people in with outside seating that for the first time since October feels inviting and not punishing. A car is idling on your corner playing the 2017 Drake album loud enough for you to hear it in your living room. The sun goes down and you’re still sitting on a friend’s stoop.

Not my blooming spring landscape, but maybe someone else’s? Photo by Redd on Unsplash

And then the next day comes, and with it, everything you remembered about winter that’s terrible comes crashing back to earth. The temperature drops 30 degrees. Maybe in a particularly cruel…