by Dawn Smith-Pfeifer
That is not a typo. By my estimation, it's not winter, it's not spring. It's "sprinter." While the official dictionary definition of sprinter is a person who runs, swims, etc. very fast over a short distance in a race, this mashup is the antithesis of fast. Call it my sick sense of humor.
Sprinter [ˈsprin(t)ər]: Also could be known as Fool's Spring. The extended time between the official calendar end of winter, stretching from March 20 to late April or even early May. It can be characterized by as little as two days above freezing, which fools even the robins, who have made a grand and hopeful appearance. To be categorized as as a true sprinter, however, the warmer weather and siting of robins must be followed by at least one "shut it all down" blizzard.
While we always seem surprised by April blizzards, they happen here more often than we care to admit. I blame it on selective remembering. Otherwise, why would we ever live here? (That's a post for another day!)
Just last year, April 12-14, we had what the National Weather Service categorized as an historic blizzard. And let's not forget 1997. Or 1984.
What does get a little disconcerting is that, we are officially on our sixth month of winter, if you gauge your seasons by snow pack. Remember November 10, 2022? I sure do. My backyard looked like this:
And other than an unusually balmy January, the rest of winter has been blizzard after blizzard. And usually on the weekends.
I don't know about you, but in my book, it isn't actually spring until stuff is growing. And it seems like we're still a long way from that happening.
But if you can't make fun of your circumstances, you could easily fall into despair.
So until further notice, I'm calling this season sprinter.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Until I see some green stuff!