The Longest Winter

Here in northern Minnesota winter started in the first week of November.  Our lakes froze, our duck season ended, and we hunkered down for what we expected would be a long winter.

We had no idea.

First, we had winter without any reprieve.  In a usual winter, we'd get a number of days in the 40's to allow things to thaw and allow people to come out of their hibernation.  We had nothing like that.  In fact, we had the opposite, with stretches of days that ran well below zero.  It was so bad, that positive temperature figures, even single digits, felt good.

Second, we're here in the second week of April and are still mired in a full-scale winter.  To our south, the Twin Cities are unburying from nearly a foot of snow.  It's horrific.

Let's do the math on that span: That's nearly five and a half straight months of winter.  We're not talking fall or spring days - we'll talking 100% straight winter stuff.  Even staunch Minnesotans have had enough of this.  We're ready for spring.

It looks like we may get our wish as temps at the end of the week will be into the 50's, and all of that snow will quickly melt.  Hopefully, we've turned the corner and we can put a cap on the longest winter I can ever remember.