Spring is here!

 Back in California, Spring comes into being like a College student getting out of bed on a Sunday morning: it happens so slowly that you can barely tell it's happening.

 For most of my life, Spring has been the slow increase in temperature, the very gradual color change as green grass turns into those famous golden hills, and flowers. Lots of flowers.
Spring is lovely in California, and I've always loved it, but I've always loved it most because it's the edge of *Summer!*

 I love Summer :D

 But here?

 "Spring" isn't gradual at all.
 One moment it's icy and snowing, the days are forgettably short, there's not a scrap of green as mud, ice, and bare tree trunks dominate the scenery.
 The next moment, the air is warm, thick and muggy - oddly salty and wet (which reminds me of the ocean some days, although since the ocean is nowhere nearby, I try not to think about why the air is salty...)
 It was the change in the air I noticed first, but it was followed in rapid succession by the other signs of change:

 The trees burst into growth, endless green beards and vast clouds of leaves spring from every tree trunk like a chia pet on fast-forward. Seemingly overnight, wide open sky is filled with leafy trees, those endless dead-looking woods are suddenly vibrant and lush!
 Mud vanishes as grasses of all shapes and sizes fling themselves out of the ground - they all came up so thick and so sudden that I'm surprised they didn't eat us all!

 And the storms... ?
 Spring is storm season here- the heavens themselves fracture into a dozen pieces over and over again as angry, billowing gray-black clouds roil through the sky. Massive lightning bolts flicker and bang all night long, eerily silent until the earth-shattering booms that follow!
 Utterly mesmerizing, and something I've never experienced. And yet, surprisingly easy to sleep through after the first one. I must be going native.

 But, in short, get lost, ice and snow! Spring is here!!