March has arrived in classic form in our part of Southeast Alaska. Unlike last year, the month’s “coming in” is distinctly leonine. The gales we’ve seen for many days now persist, and will continue through the rest of the week, from all appearances. Yesterday the local morning disk jockey referred to the marine weather “calming” toward the end of the week. The forecast agrees: northerly gales will “calm down” to 35 knots by Thursday or Friday. Compared to the current 50 knot gales, that is.
This type of weather is common in spring in our part of the world, although it apparently hit about a week later last year, leading to me to regret my first-of-the-month weather assessment. The second week of March 2010 sounds an awful lot like the last couple weeks of this year, although we’re not seeing the rain and wet snow we got last year at this time.
A certain amount of cabin fever is inevitably setting in. It’s so much easier to stay inside and work on the computer, which is good, as I have a current Web client and blogs to update, but I feel the need to get outside. High winds and low temperatures are restricting that, and we’re getting a bit antsy. Perhaps today’s hike to town in the high winds will cure that?
Looking at our posts from this time last year, I see that we started filling the summer water tank on March 4th. That is highly unlikely to happen this weekâour temperatures are far lower this year.