Yep it’s a dreary day this morning. Lots of clouds and a little rain when most of us were hoping for a sunny start to spring break. It is human nature to quickly forget just how bad it could really be at this time of year, and how lucky we actually are. So, I will make it my job to remind you what the weather could be like at this time of year. I distinctly remembered a few years ago on this weekend we had a huge storm that seemingly went on forever and dumped a pile of snow on us. You may not know this but Environment Canada keeps a listing of the historical weather data on their website. You can pick a date and find out just exactly what the conditions were like. Click here. Once you are there you can scroll through day by day. As you will notice it started snowing on Mar 24, 2009 and stopped on the evening of Mar 26. Now look outside. It doesn’t seem so bad does it? Now change the years on the stats page. Nope 2010 wasn’t so great either, still minus double digits. And yep 2011 more double digits.  2010 did make a quick turnaround though. If you scroll through to Mar 29 we took a sudden jump to plus 17. I do remember this as another early spring when we were camping April 1 and swimming April 22.  2009 definitely did not turn around so quickly. It was still snowing on April 1 so there was no camping, but we were still swimming by early May. Last year spring break camping involved shoveling snow, this year it involves holding an umbrella.  That’s not really so bad.

Speaking of swimming…. in case you were wondering the pool is almost completely free of ice. Operation pool will be starting soon! Obviously very much ahead of schedule. I don’t have an exact first swim date, but you will be the first to know.