On Thanksgiving afternoon, I was playing golf, in shorts and sunglasses, with my son at River’s Edge Golf Club. It was a glorious, summer-like day and our foursome repeatedly marveled at the conditions we were enjoying during the second week of October.
Two weeks later, to the exact hour, it was snowing.
I mention this because since I moved to Alberta in the late summer of 2020, I have rarely experienced fall, that shoulder season where the temperatures begin to dip but winter’s clutches haven’t yet taken hold. It arrives, but boy has it been fleeting.
Last year it was 20C in mid-October, snowing by Halloween and –25C by early November, so when the white stuff started coming down two weeks after Thanksgiving this year, I figured that fall, even though it purportedly takes up three months on the calendar, had once again been reduced to a week, maybe 10 days.
Lo and behold, that October snow melted and November provided moderate, mostly above seasonal temperatures with barely a hint of precipitation. It was the fall I had wondered about but had yet to experience.
Whether it was walking the dog or working in the yard, the absence of sub-zero temperatures and icy conditions made it so much more bearable. Make that downright pleasant. Rather than bundling up, it was a case of shedding layers as the weather and the calendar weren’t necessarily matching up.
I know at this point we’re just tempting fate, and that winter can’t be far away, but I think the honest-to-goodness stretch of fall weather we’ve been enjoying has done more than just keep the parkas and gloves in the closet for a little while longer.
It does something to your psyche, or at least it does to mine, when you come to the realization that the snow on the ground in October could very well stick around until April. I don’t mind Alberta winters, I really don’t, I’m just not a fan of them lasting half the year.
Having fall-like conditions throughout November and into early December means winter simply can’t stretch for months on end. Yes, I’ve heard about snowstorms in April and even May (I experienced one during my first week here last year), but the chance of any sustained cold front in those months is pretty slim.
So, if winter holds off its arrival until December and begins its disappearance sometime in March, that’s a schedule I can definitely get behind. It's a reasonable amount of time to embrace all the positives that come with the season without getting beaten down by its inevitable negatives.
If winter doesn’t arrive until December, I’m far more accepting, perhaps even welcoming, of all that it brings, largely because I’m ready for the change and know that it’s unlikely to overstay its welcome. The notion of a white Christmas is viewed as a positive, whereas a white October or a white April don’t hold the same allure.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to enjoy an extended fall because I’m not sure when Mother Nature will provide another one.
