2 February 2020 – “Oh when,” we ask ourselves plaintively as we wait for a bus at Broadway & Cambie early one evening, “when will it stop being so dark and wet?”

“Soon!” predict assorted groundhogs, shaken out of their torpor to check for shadows. “Soon! We predict an early spring.”

“Right,” says the weather-person briskly, who has just reported these furry conclusions, “and now back to science.”

She waves at the isobars on her map of the Lower Mainland, and warns of snow, rain and lower temperatures on through the week.