Spring at Last

Finally, two months late, comes spring in Michigan.

(This is a very rare occurance, as we usually have winter, winter, a period of hot weather, and winter.)

The temperatures are warming up (though we're to be hit with a cold front again tomorrow) and things are blooming. A robin has commenced its ceaseless flying into our rather very filthy and visible windows. Neighbours' cats have been let out and are irritatingly roaming here and there. The sky is at last starting to lighten at 6 am and the sun in the sky by 7. It's about time, I say.

Heat Wave

We're currently sitting in the middle of a nice mass of warm air. The temperature topped 50°F yesterday, and that qualifies as a heat wave. An unseasonably warm day in February, for us non-equatorial norther-hemisphere dwellers, feels exceedingly pleasant. Most of the snow has melted; the massive plowed mountains, the kind built up in parking lots, are now small car-sized piles. Grass is once again visible. It's trampled, yellowish grass, but grass nontheless. There's mud everywhere, and the sound of running water. Even the river has started to thaw a little near the middle. This morning, an opaque fog shrouded everything. It's like spring come several months early. 

All this is very well, but it's also slightly worrying. The number of unseasonably warm days has been increasing recently, as well as record high temperatures and more extreme weather- this past winter has been harsher and had come earlier. It's frustrating to see that a number of people don't realize what even small seasonal shifts mean. Human biological patterns may not be directly or noticeably affected, but many other species are. If one population collapses, it leads to others- its competitors, its predators or prey- undergoing other, often unfavourable changes. That's not too good for us either.