January Thaw

One of the things I love most about living in NoVa is the weather. I spent 21 long winters in the frozen tundra of the Pine Tree State. Winters here are much more pleasant than they are so far North. I can deal with the cold to a certain degree but there is no doubt that my blood has thinned out over the past 12 years south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The best thing about winter in the mid-Atlantic region is that every now and then there is a day of total respite. A day that feels like you have magically drifted back in time to a day of Indian summer from the fall or somehow leaped ahead to the spring season still to come. Today was one of those magical days. Sunny and warm with a gentle southern breeze and a high of 71 degrees.

We are lucky enough in NoVa to have a couple of these magical days sprinkled into our winter season each year. They seem to come out of nowhere and they seem to disappear in a flash. They make up for the miserable days of winter. The windy, snowy, cold days that make you want to move to Arizona.

All good things in moderation of course. If you string together too many of these wonderful days in a row or in a month it is just a sucker punch for the days of actual winter weather that await you down the line. Remember last January? I do. I also remember how cold and miserable last February was. Here's to hoping that today was indeed a day of magic not a sucker punch for what the rest of winter 2008 holds.