New Year's Eve, and the snow is melting fast, with intermittent rain to help. It's nearly 7 degrees out! Roadsides have transformed from pristine white to dirty mud in 24 hours. Stripes of snow have been sliding off the steep-pitched steel roof with a great 'whooosh' like the rumbling of nearby thunder, smashing into the driveway leaving a pile of very heavy white stuff.
Besides the big messy very unwelcome thaw, what I notice is the changing wind direction. Over the past month we've had a lot of winds out of the north or northwest. The arctic air masses have been winning the mid-latitude battle, keeping it cold, and winds off Georgian Bay have brought the snow streamers. But for a couple of days, a large warm air mass moving north out of the Gulf of Mexico has been winning. And with it come strong south winds pushing that warmer air north.
I notice the winds because on my daily walks with the dog we walk around a loop of road, so no matter what direction the wind is coming from, at some point we're walking into it. And it's usually cold!
Sometime tomorrow night the warm spell will end, as the cold air mass pushes down across southern Ontario, and everyone will notice the sudden big drop in temperature. But what I will notice is the shift in wind direction, from south to west or northwest, bringing that colder weather, and hopefully some more snow.
Yes! The winter season in over and adventurers have waited for this for a long time. The wind is no more subtle and you can feel the pleasant change.
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