March can be a fickle and changeable month. The old weather saying of “in like a lion, out like a lamb” doesn’t come close to describing the actual weather roller coaster that often is March. We can usually expect and experience 31 days of whiplashing temperature swings in rapid succession. Outerwear can quickly run the gamut from heavy insulated parkas to unlined rain jackets and back again, sometimes in as brief as a four day span. It’s enough to drive one crazy.
Many times, especially in norther climates, there can be a string of several sunny and warm days followed by cold nights. In agricultural areas this period is often called “sugaring season” and can be a significant financial boost for a farming family. This is the time that maple trees are tapped for the flowing sap which is then boiled down to maple syrup. There is always a balance needed, for a span of too many warm days will stimulate the maple (and other) trees to set leaf buds and those can be damaged if truly deep cold follows the warm spell. But inmost years the buds appear a bit later and so the needed leaves will develop normally. And each year we can enjoy the bounty of sugaring season on our plates of pancakes or waffles.
No matter how long the first warm spell of March lasts, many people start to think we have moved into spring. While a warming trend is welcome, it is only a tease of the weather to come and a brief respite from a long cold winter. If the warmth lasts for several days we can consider it to be “false spring”. It feels great, there is noticeable heat in the sun, and we watch the snowbanks shrink. But false spring is only a foretaste of what we hope will come along soon. The longer, colder, and snowier the winter means that our anticipation of spring is stronger. And sometimes we are fooled by false spring into thinking that winter is over. Yet there are usually two or three more blasts of winter before we truly move into spring.
Spring will (eventually) follow winter just as surely as night follows day but we cannot hurry the process. No matter how severe or easy the winter has been, spring will come along. Astronomical spring will always happen on a specific day but that doesn’t mean we will actually experience spring weather around that date. We need to be patient so that true spring can catch up to the calendar. That will happen eventually.
False spring will certainly give us a taste and a tease of what will come. It is a time that we can catch our metaphorical breath between the depths of winter and a final period of cold with the possibility of some more snow. Those of us who are accustomed to this pattern know that we need to keep our snow removal tools handy. After false spring any amount of snow can fall, from a trace to many inches. But eventually true spring appears. My two favorite signs of true spring, daffodil flowers and apple tree blossoms, will be seen on the landscape in succession. True spring brings the renewal of the natural world after the cold blanket of winter at the appropriate time.