The last weekend of astronomical winter provides a bit of chilly weather.
Saturday was the last Saturday in astronomical winter, and as thoughts turned toward spring, it seemed that we could already see more cherry blossom petals in a day than we saw snowflakes all winter.
Without poring over detailed charts and analyses, it seemed as if Shakespeare’s “winter of our discontent” may have mainly afflicted those Washington residents who pine for the sight of snow and cherish the look of it upon our landscape.Otherwise, the number of blossom petals visible Saturday might seem somehow comparable, at least in a symbolic sense, to the relatively few snowflakes observed in Washington this winter.
True, peak bloom has yet to arrive, according to the National Park Service. But on the other hand, we are yet to amass more than a half inch of snow, and it is getting late to acquire more.So in a way, Saturday seemed poised at an important cultural turning point. It was a perhaps slightly blurred boundary between winter and the full bloom of the fabled blossoms.
However, a single day includes many parts, and may seem more than the mere arithmetical sum of all of them. Thus, it seemed possible that the ubiquitous brilliance of the mid-March sun appeared above us enough to create a single overwhelming impression.The mercury rose in the afternoon to 54 degrees in Washington. That was 2 degrees warmer than the March 18 average.
And at the Tidal Basin, the Park Service tweeted that the “blossoms are starting to show” and were “puffy white.” “Next stop,” the Park Service said “is peak bloom!” And for many of us, spring!
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