Mar 2, 2022 3 min read

March is here! That means we’ve already made it through the bulk of winter. Despite a few weeks of very cold air and a couple of rounds of accumulating snow in January, this winter has seemed fairly typical to me and altogether not that miserable (despite having to shovel snow a handful of times). Remember our mild December? Overall, Pittsburgh’s temperature ran 7.2 degrees warmer than average with less than one inch of snow the entire month and 58 degrees on Christmas Day. We were lulled into a false sense of coziness before January hit. Then, the bottom dropped out with temperatures 5.2 degrees colder than normal and a whopping 19.2 inches of snow. February didn’t know what it wanted to do. It had two days of 62-degree highs, two days of single-digit lows and only 5.8 inches of snow – which is about half the 30-year average amount for the month.

Now, we turn our attention to March and the impending arrival of spring. The old saying, “In like a lion and out like a lamb,” does not always hold true for this month. In fact, late-winter storms often dump snow on our region in March, and the end of the month also signals the start of severe weather season as warm spring air does battle trying to displace winter’s chill. Pittsburgh averages 7.6 inches of snow during the month of March. This year, it seems as if March is indeed coming in like a lamb. We’ll have some mild air in place next weekend and most long-range models are showing good chances of above normal temperatures for the rest of the month.

I was thinking of this over the weekend when the sunshine and tolerable temperatures made the annual display of my winter snowman collection look a bit out of place. One by one, I started gathering them from around the living and family rooms and put them away for another year. Finally, I turned to my “superpower” snowman front door decoration. He goes up each January displacing the Christmas wreath and right on cue… wham! Here come a few inches of snow. Normally, I leave him up all the way until March 21. This year, I chose to give him an early vacation and replaced him with a sort of spring/garden door hanging. Will that hold his snow superpower in check for the rest of March? We shall see. I hate to think I won’t get another day or two of skiing this season since the resorts got such a late start due to such mild air in late November and December.

I should make some sort of a Punxsutawney Phil door decoration next year that could cover me all the way from winter to Groundhog Day, through Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day into the first day of spring. But what fun would that be?

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.