This is January in Ohio. Really?

According to my trusty iPhone, the outside temperature is currently 54 degrees Fahrenheit. To someone in Florida or Hawaii or Tahiti, 54 degrees Fahrenheit might be considered frigid enough to wear a puffy down jacket, but to someone in Ohio in January, 54 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty much short sleeves and a light windbreaker jacket sort of weather.

It’s actually a little spooky. What happened to winter? And I’m definitely regretting the heavy wool socks, quilted snow boots and turtleneck sweater I donned this morning assuming it was January and I live in Ohio.

Go figure.

So while the wind is kicking up some, it’s bright and sunny outside. I swear I’m starting to see buds on the trees. And I start thinking that winter is nearly over.

Yeah, right.

But I can’t help myself. I get all happy when we turn the corner on winter and head into spring when we get to wash the road salt off our vehicles for the last time and pack away the wool scarves.

But this is Mother Nature’s cruel joke on us Midwesterners. It is, after all, January 23rd and we are, after all, still in the midst of winter. We could get an ice storm tonight. Or a blizzard tomorrow. And our defenses will be down. So we might wake up tomorrow and start rooting through the closet to find that short sleeve shirt and light windbreaker jacket…only to misread Mother Nature’s intentions and find ourselves with permanent goose bumps on our exposed arms and frostbite on our toes.

Fortunately for me, my short sleeve shirts and windbreaker-type jackets are packed away in bins with big signs on them that read: “Do Not Open Until April!” I’m not falling for it, Mother Nature – you hear me?? I’ll just deal with the temporary global warming in my feet while I’m wearing these wool socks. Or maybe I can go sockless and start a new trend. No socks with quilted snow boots? Nah, I don’t think it’ll catch on. I mean, who’d even know I was going sockless underneath those quilted snow boots?

Fashion trendsetter, I’m not.

Ah well. I suppose I should just enjoy the milder weather we’re experiencing today and assume that tomorrow may be quite different.

It is, after all, winter. And I am, after all, in Ohio. As ‘they’ say, “If you don’t like the weather in… (insert name of State here)…stick around for another 10 minutes and it’ll change.”

So…

…Yep, I took a 10 minute break and, sure enough, the sun has disappeared and it’s raining. Plus, I hear we now have a wind advisory with possible wind gusts up to 40 MPH. And yet, according to my trusty iPhone, it is 57 degrees Fahrenheit.

Seriously?

Perhaps I should stop writing about the weather here in Ohio in January. I’m getting dizzy.

You wouldn’t want to use me as your meteorological source for the current weather conditions, anyway. After all, I’m the one wearing wool socks and quilted snow boots in 57 degree weather.