March: In like a Lion

Just when all of us were counting the days to the beginning of spring — known as the vernal equinox, which this year falls on Wednesday, March 20, at 5:58 p.m. — Ol’ Man Winter struck with a vengeance, bringing a double-snow storm this past weekend followed by frigid temperatures to start the week.

Up until the past two weeks, this winter season had been mostly underwhelming in the Greater Boston area in terms of both snowfall and temperature. However, in our lifetimes, this often has been the case: A January and February that have been fairly easy to take, only to be followed by a March that begins with brutal weather.

A quick peek at the 10-day forecast revealed that after the brief appearance of cold weather, temperatures will return to normal for this time of year through St. Patrick’s Day.

The weather always has fallen into that category of what former Secretary of Defenee Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as “known unknowns — that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know.”

However, in this era of climate change, the other part of Rumsfeld’s quote, “But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know,” is applicable.

To put it another way, who knows what Mother Nature has in store for us these days? Perhaps more than anything else in our lives, we just have to take the weather one day at a time.