Detailing the real March madness — weather
Editor’s note: Gerald Kloss, whose humor column was a staple of the old Milwaukee Journal Green Sheet section, was never shy about offering his expert opinion, whether he knew what he was talking about or not. Take this Feb. 26, 1988, “Slightly KlossEyed” column, in which he answers questions about the month before the cruelest month, March. Considering the weather this month, we sure could use a few answers.
Welcome to the Kloss-Eyed symposium on March, and please raise your hand if you have a question. You first, madam, wearing the mink hat and miniskirt in the third row.
Q. Is March considered a winter month or a spring month?
A. It’s like describing a bottle containing liquid to the halfway point. The pessimist calls it halfempty, the optimist calls it halffull.
Similarly, the astronomer insists that spring doesn’t start until the moment of the vernal equinox (in 2017, that will be at 5:28 a.m. on Monday, March 20). He’s the pessimist. But the meteorologist says that spring starts March 1. He’s the optimist.
There is still another way of determining just when spring has arrived. If you live in the western suburbs, spring bursts onto the scene the first morning that the rising sun slants its golden beams between the hood of your car and the bottom of the sun visor as you drive east to work.
So the exact arrival of spring depends on when you customarily leave for work, but it happens to most people in the first weeks of March, when the eastbound rush hour traffic on I-94 inches forward as drivers squint into the blinding light. If you can’t lip-read what the drivers are muttering, it’s “Spring! Spring! The bird is on the wing! / Absurd! Absurd! The wing is on the bird!” Or something like that. Q. How does March usually come in around here, like a lion or a lamb?
A. Neither. Our experts studied March 1 weather for the last century and found that March came in like an aardvark 23 times, a laughing hyena 18 times, a limping caribou 13 times, and a molting raccoon 11 times, to only five leonine and three ovine entrances.
The long-range prediction for this year was for March to come in wagging its tail like a cocker spaniel and leave, snuffling and wallowing, like a Poland China hog.
Q. I notice that, often in March, the ground turns squishy. What causes that?
A. That is known as the spring thaw. In winter, the ground freezes because of the cold weather. When a warm spell comes along, the ground unfreezes, leaving the soil wet and squishy. That is the thaw, and it’s a messy business all around.
Q. Is it OK to take down your outside Christmas lights and decorations in March, or is that rushing it?
A. What’s your hurry? The general rule is, you don’t have to take down your Christmas stuff until you have paid off your Christmas bills from the department stores, candle boutiques, beer depots, etc. That is the reason why some homes keep Christmas wreaths on the front door year-round.
Q. How does March rank among the months in the popularity polls?
A. It used to rank 10th, after January and February, but it rose to ninth when the income tax deadline was shifted from March 15 to April 15 in the 1950s. It probably won’t place any higher until March gives up its nasty habit of throwing in a 12-inch snowstorm or a 10-below-zero spell every few years to keep people on their toes.
This is known among experts as “Ice Age Hangover” — the month’s occasional throwback to the good old days.