We usually await the coming of spring with a local event involving “Mt. Wally,” the snow pile at the end of the driveway (and covering half the backyard, sometimes). We measure the severity of the winter and the pace of the season change by the date of Mt. Wally’s disappearance. Our very unscientific and global-warming-doesnt-exist approach (i.e., we don’t care about the data) is to mark the days before or after Patriot’s Day (April 19) when Mt. Wally disappears.

Mt. Wally (c. 2011-2012) disappeared Friday, Mar-23. The sense is that we are done for snow this season; this is another oddity since April snow, even an inch or two, is also an early spring event.

On Tuesday, the local pond is quickly losing it’s ice cover (see image, upper left).