Today was sunny & warm: 50°, very springlike.

Jake had an archery tournament in Springfield, so the rest of us drove over to watch and cheer him on. It was a big tournament, lots of schools competing.

Archery tournaments are a pleasant way to spend a Saturday, even though I usually have no idea what’s going on. Kids shoot arrows, a guy wearing a referee’s zebra shirt blows a whistle, people walk down to the targets & retrieve their arrows.

Lather, rinse repeat.

(Scores? Those for today’s competition were delayed due to “computer problems”. We won’t know for a few days who actually won.)

Tomorrow we were supposed to go to Normal, for a birthday party; but the forecast – for the day after this lovely spring day – calls for five to eight inches of snow. After a winter in which every storm seemed to pass fifty miles to one side or another of Champaign, this one is heading right for us.

The party’s already been canceled. However – we were supposed to bring the cake; Jennifer ordered one from the grocery store, which order has not been canceled. What ever will we do with all that cake?

(Dumb question. We’re going to eat it.)

As of 11:00pm, we’re still waiting for the snow to begin. Outside, it still looks like spring.

Weather people have been chatting up an imminent “heavy snowfall” since late last week.

Alas, as we get closer to Zero Hour, the forecast gets milder. It was four to six inches of snow, interspersed with freezing rain; now it’s three to five, and no rain. Or maybe one to three.

Zero Hour itself keeps moving back. Yesterday’s forecast said we’d have an inch of snow on the ground by now; the actual total: zero.

I don’t hold it against the forecasters. Meteorology is an imprecise science. But we’ve had a few heavy snowfalls predicted this winter, and every one has turned out to be a dud.

I’m hoping this one pans out, and we all get a snow day tomorrow. That would be nice.

We have a few inches of snow on the ground, here in Champaign. It started as freezing rain, shortly after 4pm, then switched over to snow.

It snowed for a few hours, then stopped. Just now (9:15pm) it started raining, with the crackly sound against walls & windows that says it’s freezing as it hits.

I’m hoping for two things:

• That the power stays on tonight. The lights have already flickered once, so we might end up in the dark.
• That the Unit 4 administrators declare a snow day tomorrow. As yet, they have not. Hurry up, people, I do not want to get up at 6:00am if I don’t have to.

Yesterday evening I was walking home from the bus. As I came to the street graced by Stately Rice Manor, an automobile turned onto the cross street. Its headlights swept across me, and I saw…snow, swirling in the beams.

That was the first of the season, so far as I’ve seen.

Last winter was a bit feeble: too short, too warm, almost no snow. I’ve been seeing news items suggesting that two such in a row is too much to expect.

A real winter might be nice. Or might qualify as be careful what you wish for.

Cloudy this morning, and much cooler: the temperature at 1pm today was almost twenty degrees cooler vs. yesterday at 1pm. Rain threatened at times, but – so far as I could tell – none actually fell. The overcast cleared in mid-afternoon, and the temperature rose a bit. (Not too much, though.)

Tomorrow, the blast furnace returns: highs in the nineties, Saturday through Friday. That’s as far as the forecast goes – if it went further, I suspect it would be more of the same.

The newsdroids are saying drought, and running photos of the shrunken Mississippi (no longer a mile wide).

Conditions are (said to be) worse than 1988, even though we still get occasional rainfall. In 1988, weeks passed with no rain at all; and, once the air dried out, temperatures soared into the low 100s.

It worries me a bit that we have two months of summer left. I’ve had quite enough already.

Today’s high was 100+ degrees (exactly how high depends on whose data you’re looking at), for the fourth consecutive day. The last time that happened was 1936, a year known for its furnace of a summer.

A few records from 1936 have fallen this year, and autumn is still two months away.

Jake & I were out in it for a while this afternoon, running some errands. We stopped at the haircut place, for a trim (both of us); we hit the local Target, to buy a new filter for the vacuum cleaner (it turns out Target sells the vacuum cleaners, but not the filters); and – our final stop – Lowe’s, for a soaker hose (we found a nice one, and not too expensive).

The lawn looks terrible: brown, dry, utterly lifeless. Even the shady spots are in sad shape. But I don’t mind that. The grass will come back. (It always does.)

But the trees are looking stressed. (Having the fence guys drive their Bobcat over their roots couldn’t have helped.) So the plan is to give them a good soak, first thing Sunday morning, which is why Jake & I went hose-shopping.

(That just sounds naughty.)

We woke up this morning expecting to see snow on the ground; there was none. Crazy weather, we thought.

The snow started around 7:30am. It’s still coming down, but just flurries. The grass is mostly covered, but streets and sidewalks remain clear.

Today’s forecast calls for a high around 40°, rising into the fifties for the rest of the week, so our bonus winter won’t last long.

NOAA says:

SATURDAY NIGHT

RAIN OR SNOW IN THE EVENING…THEN SNOW AFTER MIDNIGHT. SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 2 TO 4 INCHES. LOWS IN THE LOWER 30S. WINDY. NORTH WINDS 15 TO 20 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 35 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 80 PERCENT.

Snow? It’s almost April!

(Poor NOAA. Money is so tight they can’t even afford lowercase letters.)

NOAA reports a temperature of 70° as of 2:00pm: first time this year it’s been so warm.

Most years, I end up complaining that the first 70° day is late. Not this year.

The current NOAA forecast is unusually blunt:

A WIND CHILL WARNING MEANS THE COMBINATION OF VERY COLD AIR AND STRONG WINDS WILL CREATE DANGEROUSLY LOW WIND CHILL VALUES. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA OR DEATH IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN.

…but it’s -14° just now, so perhaps they’re justified.