Happy New Year

Happy New Year.  Is this the Last Year, or did the Mayans just run out of paper?

What?

I took the picture on the right today of the Rio Grande park next to where I work here in town.  There is something very, very strange about it.  Can you guess what it is?

Not that I'm an amateur Meteorologist or anything, but I do follow the weather here closely.  Typically, we start to see green in the Rio Grande park the first week of April.  Early would be the last week of March and if we have lots of snow, it can be as late as May.  It's the first day of the year and the whole park is essentially green.  It was white most of December and a little in November, so it has technically thawed or melted off.  Do you have any idea the set of circumstances that has to occur for us to see grass here in January?  Heck, I ate my lunch at work today outside in the courtyard without a jacket.  Amazing.  It has just been amazing weather here.  Unless you're a skier I suppose ... but I'm not.  Global warming?  Climate change?  I could care less, I'm just enjoying every minute of it.  If we always only had 3 months of winter here instead of half of the year, I would probably never want to leave.

I wish everybody a Happy and Healthy 2012!