Last night I heard my television weather lady tell me that Saturday is the start of the “Meteorological Spring”. I didn’t know what that meant then and I sort of stopped thinking about it because I was busy knitting the night away, but now that I’m at work and it the middle of trying to remember how to use jQuery and JavaScript, I remembered hearing this and so I googled what it meant (from 2010):

[T]oday is not only March 1, but the kick off of “Meteorological Spring”! Say what? O.K. Here’s the deal: apparently Mother Nature does not consult the calendar. If you look at what is (historically) the coldest 90 days of winter — and who among us hasn’t — winter really begins close to December 1, not the 21st. And it ends closer to March 1, not the 21st of March. Yes, as far as the atmosphere is concerned spring arrives today — the coldest days (and nights) of winter are definitely behind us now. We may still have a couple of subzero lows …. Odds are we’ll see at least another 10–15″ of snow, but there’s a big difference between March snow and January snow. January snows tend to linger, seemingly indefinitely. When it snows in March (when the sun angle is as high in the sky as it is in early/mid October) any accumulation tends to melt rapidly, usually within a few days. March snow is — temporary. I know it’s awfully hard to believe gazing out at the seemingly immovable glacier in your yard — but most of the snow you’re staring out at now will be gone by the end of the month (when the average high will be close to 50 degrees)

(source)

So now we both know. Bring on the melt, Minnesota!