On Frozen Blog

Approximately eight feet away from my laptop station I have a patio screen door that’s opened this morning, to allow fresh Washington August air into my home.
It’s 69 degrees outside. In August. In mid-morning. In Washington. At 6 the other morning I had the top of my Wrangler lowered en route to the gym, and I needed a fleece top to ward off the morning chill. This morning I looked at the 10-day advance weather forecast for lower Montgomery County, and we’re not supposed to see a single day’s mercury north of 85, with evenings consistently in the lower and middle sixties. This is in the heart of August in Washington, D.C. I think the world must be coming to the end.
There are cooling patterns — merciful respites (almost always very temporary) — from Oven July and Oven August in Washington, but then there’s what we’ve had here this summer: namely, not really summer at all, by Washington’s standards. What the heck is going on?
We have had sticky sets of days, and we have had a handful of genuinely hot days, but we really have not had the twin agonies joined for any appreciable period. I remember well being in Colorado in early June and learning of 100-degree temps plaguing the District while I was playing in 10-foot snowdrifts in Rocky Mountain National Park. Flying home, I thought of a certain summer of agony ahead. But it’s never arrived. Indeed, that early June heatwave was the warmest it’s been here all summer.
The lifeguards in Ocean City must be seated at their observation posts this weekend in Reebok beach systems, to help retain body heat (and moisture).
Can Alexander Ovechkin actually will us cooler, more hockey-friendly, Moscow-like weather? It would appear. We’re on pace to attend the September Caps-Flyers’ rookie scrimmage at Kettler in parkas.
In such conditions, allow me to meteorologically dream a little.
Perhaps this New England summer in the Mid-Atlantic portends a deliciously crisp autumn and a Canal- and Reflecting Pool-freezing winter. Perhaps on fall Saturdays those of us who enjoy college football will tailgate in these parts in bluejeans and sweatshirts and perhaps even jackets on top of that. Or put another way: perhaps we’ll watch our football in football weather.
We’ve had a decent bit of rain this spring and summer — particularly relative to last summer — and so weather-cooperating late September and October weekends should afford us spectacular autumnal colors amid drives in the Shenandoah National Park or up along Skyline Drive. The way things are going with crude oil prices these days, we might actually be able to afford to take those drives.
And then there’s the possibility of an old fashioned Washington winter. One from my youth. Chilly at Thanksgiving. Cold at Christmas. Frozen in January and February.
Many of you have seen (or own) photographs of Georgetown under a heavenly dumping of snow. Cars can’t navigate the unplowed streets, so you see then Washington the pedestrian city it was designed to be. You know that Saturday matinee we have with the Wings on the final day of January this season? How wonderful would it be to get belted good with the white stuff that Friday, to plan an early Saturday morning, Metro-free commute to the game, all bundled up with a few puck buddies (one of them named Flask)?
I think I’ll make that thought my August Saturday night mood-enhancer. I also think I’ll wear a hockey sweater while tending to my patio barbeque this evening. I’m gonna need it, after all.
Washington the Hockey Weather Town. Has a nice ring to it.