Not News Except In Northern New England: It's Spring!

Finally! A daffodil bloom in my St. Albans
Vermont yard makes an appearance on Saturday.  

Spring has finally arrived!

Readers in most of the nation knew that weeks ago, but here where I live in northwestern Vermont, things move slowly.

Spring really just showed up in the past couple of days.

I know, astronomical spring arrived back in March. And we had a few days of bonafide spring weather in April.

But the green, lush, flowery, warm blooming effects of real spring seemed even later to arrive than usual after a winter that seemed to never end.

Just over a week ago, in fact, it snowed here in Vermont.

As is often the case when spring arrives late, it comes in in a rush, basically transitioning from winter's grasp to summer's embrace in a blink of an eye.

Temperatures yesterday afternoon were summery, and are forecast to be at least as warm today and Monday.  Parts of northern New England could flirt with 80 degrees.

The rush to green has begun.

Yesterday, when I drove to work shortly after dawn, none of the trees along the roadside had leaves yet. When I drove home along the same route late yesterday afternoon, some of the trees had popped out some fragile mint green colored leaves, glistening in the sun.

When I left home in the morning, daffodils were budding, just itching to bloom. By evening, many of them were.

My lilac tree is promising lots of blooms. Many of the green buds are now turning purple, hinting at the blossoms to come.

The lawn that was brown three days ago is green and could stand to be mowed now.

Weather forecasts have no mention of snow, but do mention the chance of spring and summer type thundershowers toward next weekend.  Temperatures every day in Vermont through next weekend will at least get well into the 60s, often into the 70s.

I might be jinxing things by writing this, but I think Vermont has finally joined pretty much the rest of the northern hemisphere to welcome spring.

It's been a long time coming.