The Strangest Month

 February is the strangest month.

In the year I was born, my birth was on the coldest day of that winter season in New York City, according to my mother. MH looked it up and it is true.

Backyard, 8 am, Feb. 18, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

Today, a week after my most recent birthday and after several days when it was warm enough to take a walk in a light jacket rather than a parka, I awoke to five inches or so of light, powdery snow. A cold front had swept through and clashed with the rain from the day before. Now, with the temperature above 40 degrees, snow has already been coming down from the trees and my plowed driveway is dry thanks to the abundant sunshine.

According to weather.com, this coming week in New York City the temperature will gradually rise from 47 degrees Fahrenheit today (Sunday) to 70 degrees on Wednesday before cooling to 47 degrees Friday and then rising slightly (with rain) over the weekend.

Oh boy, Mud Season!

This is not so unusual for February, even at a time of increasing global warming. Last year, at around this time, MH and I traveled down the Jersey shore to Island Beach State Park on a 70 degree day. Two years ago, the ground was frozen and I was seeking signs of life in the garden. Many years ago, when our nieces and nephew were much younger, we took them to New York's Museum of Natural History on what turned out to be a February day of record warmth, 72 degrees. Even longer ago, on my birthday in 1979, the man who became MH and I met in NYC for supper and it was so windy and so painfully cold we could not go more than a couple of storefronts down the street before ducking inside to get warm. We had supper in the first open restaurant we could find.

Apple tree, Feb. 18, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

What is it about February?

About a year ago, writers for NorthJersey.com asked the same question. In what seems oddly prophetic they wrote:

Blame the jet stream for the wild gyrations in the weather.

“Most of this winter so far we’ve fallen into this progressive pattern where nothing has stayed more than a few days,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist and a Rutgers University professor. For much of the time, a steady west-to-east flow of upper winds has trapped colder air to the north. January was the 12th-warmest on record for New Jersey, dating to 1895.

But occasionally, because of an array of variables that affects atmospheric patterns, the jet stream bulges to the south, letting colder air down from Canada.

The Old Farmer's Almanac for 2018 has this prediction for the mid-Atlantic region that includes New York and New Jersey:

Winter temperatures will be above normal, on average, with the coldest periods in early to mid-December, late December, early January and early February. Precipitation will be above normal with below-normal snowfall.

The snowiest periods, it says, will be mid-December and mid-January. Most of the prediction has been correct but not the part about the snowfall. The snow on the ground today in mid-February is the most we've had this winter season.

Feeders and baffle with snow helmets. (Margo D. Beller)

February is the tail end of winter. By the meteorological calendar, spring starts on March 1. (The vernal equinox is March 21.) The days are already noticeably longer, with darkness at around 5:30 p.m. EST, about an hour later than in the dead of winter. As I was shoveling out a path to the bird feeders I was hearing cardinals singing out territorial songs. House finches and a tufted titmouse was singing, a flicker called and a downy woodpecker drummed against a tree. Overhead there were a couple dozen grackles flying by, angrily chucking. Just a few days ago an equally large flock of robins were all over my thawed front lawn, scrounging for worms and other food. Maybe they knew what was coming.

My indoor plants have also noticed the increase in light and have started sending out new shoots. It is far from warm enough to put them on my back porch but you can see they are ready to go, especially on the damper, milder days when I can turn off the heat and open some windows. Several plants are flowering, showing some welcome color.  

Before the snow fell I was already seeing some of the earliest weeds growing in one of my garden beds, a reminder of all the work I will have to do once spring - meteorological, vernal, whatever - becomes a reality. I can wait.

A Taste of Spring

For a few short moments, I could forget it is just a week after mid-January. The temperature had gone into the upper 40s or low 50s F and the last batch of snow and ice had melted. The frozen soil was turning muddy in parts as I walked our nearly 1/2 an acre, picking up brush and other garbage blown in from other pails and then caught in fencing and snowed over.

Brook, once the ice melted (Margo D. Beller)

There is a titmouse singing its high-pitched spring song. The white-breasted nuthatches are singing their high-pitched, nasal song. They seem to think it is spring. The black-capped chickadees are searching the bushes and tree branches for any grubs or insects foolish enough to think it spring. I see a couple of daffodils and at least one hyacinth has been so fooled, sticking their noses above the defrosting soil.

I leave my property and take a walk. I feel the need to get out now that the ice has melted and the road is merely wet and not treacherous. Just a few days ago local waterways were thick with ice. Along the linear park near me called Patriots Path, the Whippany River was solid ice and you could see where the heavy rain that fell before the recent freeze caused the river to overspill its banks, creating a frozen wonderland.

Today, however, as I walked the water was flowing in the local brook and the nearby dog park had 18 cars parked in the lot and across the road - 18 people (at least) taking 18 dogs (likely more) out in the mild air to let them run around, not minding that their feet (man and dog) were getting mucky.

Whippany River overflow and freeze (Margo D. Beller)

I continued along the road and saw a number of robins flying around, picking at branches and also at the thawing grasses and dirt. Until now they have been living off what they can find, including the fruits left on the poison ivy and other vines or shrubs. (Some need a good freeze until they are palatable.) Now, the robins are looking for protein.

I walked and I was not alone. There are others out walking or jogging along the road. When it is arctic cold and wind chills in the negative numbers, the inclination is to stay in and hibernate like a bear, at least for me. So when it is finally warm and the sun is out, I try to be out too. I want to be part of a greater world, not stuck indoors. (However, I hope the bears are still in their dens!)

One particular woman is walking much faster than I am. I watch her move on, earbuds in, ignoring the world. I was stopped at a pond and saw that in the thawed part there were mallards - first a pair, then (when I moved out of direct view) about a dozen, males and females. And something else, a lone American black duck, a pleasant surprise. Like the mallards, black ducks are dabblers. They will swim on the surface and put their heads into the water to feed. Unlike the mallards, male and female black ducks look alike. So while I don't know whether this particular duck was male or female, I do know I got to see something the woman bopping to her personal soundtrack in her own little world did not (presuming she'd even care).

Ducks on pond - mallard pair and, on ice at left, a black duck (Margo D. Beller)

Reluctantly, I came home through the community garden where lately, for the first time in a while, I've heard the honking of the Canada geese that come down to the grassy field to feed and rest. Where were they during the freeze? Some office park lawn, no doubt. There are lots of those out here in the NJ suburbs.

As I write, the clouds have moved in and it is getting close to sunset, nowadays right around 5pm ET. There will be clouds and drizzle tomorrow, heavy rain the day after. It will be even warmer but then, as usual, once the rain is gone it will turn colder. Soon it will be the end of January. Then it's February. "Spring" is over until the real thing comes along.

When I was born, that particular February day was the coldest on record. I have to remember that when we have these January thaws. They are but a respite, a taste of spring, a reminder that no matter how bad (or cold) things get there is always another chance for a better day.