THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 20, 1996 TAG: 9603200004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
The winter of 1996 is now nothing but a chilly memory.
At 3:03 this morning the frigid winter of 1996 winter officially - and finally - ended.
Was spring ever more welcome?
While not a record-breaking winter, the folks at the National Weather Service confirm what most Hampton Roads residents knew by looking out their windows: It snowed a lot. So far this year 18.9 inches of snow have fallen compared with the 8 inches which normally dust the area. And average temperatures were slightly below normal too.
And while there is little in this world more dreary than a cold gray day on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the banks of the Elizabeth River or along the cold Atlantic coastline, is there another place on Earth that blooms more beautifully in the fullness of spring?
Unfortunately, it is the area's children who will continue to feel the effects of the frozen winter as they make up snow days by attending classes on Saturdays during their scheduled spring breaks and, for some, even on that most glorious warm weather holiday: Memorial Day.
Perhaps their teachers will console them by reading to them from the 16th-century poet, Thomas Nashe, who said of spring:
``Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king.'' by CNB