Signs of spring in January?

 

By Richard B. Primack

“To us snow and cold seem a mere delaying of the spring. How far we are from understanding the value of these things in the economy of Nature!”  Henry David Thoreau in his Journals.

 

January was an amazingly warm month in eastern Massachusetts, with daytime temperatures about 6 degrees F above average and nighttime temperature about 10 degrees F above average.  In a normal year, January would be the middle of winter.  But climate change does not conform to our expectations based on past experience.

 

On January 18 I went for a long walk in the Webster Woods in Newton looking for signs of spring, though not really expecting to see much.  To my surprise, there were already signs of the effects of this unusual warm weather in creating spring-like events:

There were skunk cabbages plants in flower in the Vale stream.

Skunk cabbage in flower in mid January!

There were leaves of marsh marigold that had come above ground in the Vale stream and then damaged by frost.

Marsh marigold leaves above ground and damaged by frost.

Hammond Pond, which is normally covered with thick ice in mid-January, was open, and there were hundreds of waterbirds on the surface, including many small diving ducks.