Yesterday was St. Medard Day and as the saying goes, “Medardova kápě čtyřicet dní kape” (Medard’s cape drips for forty days). I found the saying in English as well: “Should St. Medard’s Day be wet, it will rain for forty yet”. This Medard guy is usually pretty consistent and, as far as I remember, June 8 is a rainy day more often than not. Well, did it rain yesterday? It didn’t! Apparently we’re in for a nice, dry and sunny month. And it’s about time. After the beautiful first three weeks of May, we were thrown back into March with its rain, wind and 12-degree temperatures. I couldn’t believe it when I was turning our heater on (and praying it would work) on June 2. Yesterday was finally quite warm and sunny and it seems it’s only going to get better. Summer is less than two weeks away.

This is the second weather post in a row, I know, but I just can’t keep quiet about this. We’ve had a summer day here in Prague. It’s been absolutely beautiful. The sun is out, the sky is blue, the air is warm, the high was somewhere around 21°C (70°F). I was cautious before going out this afternoon and just had to put a jacket on because it simply felt wrong not to after having bundled up in three layers of clothes for months. As it turned out, I didn’t need it. Jeff wore a t-shirt and was happy as a clam.

I have a feeling that the weather has played a malicious little game with us this winter. It dumped tons of snow on us, brought arctic temperatures from Russia and didn’t give us a break for the longest time, just to make us feel that the winter would never end. And then it serves us a gorgeous day we’re not really expecting until May and laughs at our unpreparedness and childish glee.

Here’s a bit of weather wisdom for today:

Jaké počasí bude na sv. Ruprechta, takové bude i v červenci.
The weather you get on St. Rupert Day is the weather you’ll have in July.

I’m not going to complain if we have weather like this in July!

Jeff and I went out today and wow, was it warm! Our thermometer showed an unbelievable 13°C and the real temperature was probably about 11°C (52°F). We were shocked when we stepped out and were hit by air that not only lacked the cold bite we got used to in the past four months (seems like eternity by now), but contained noticeable traces of WARMTH. We became almost ecstatic and big smiles spread over our faces. Instead of taking the tram to our destination, we happily walked, scarfless, gloveless, hatless, unzipping our jackets as we warmed up and pointing out people who weren’t even wearing jackets (gasp!). We didn’t care when it started drizzling and we thought, let anything come down as long as it’s not SNOW!

We’re going to have lunch at the Klášterní pivovar Strahov tomorrow. It’s set in a beautiful location that just invites you for a walk. I checked the weather forecast and couldn’t believe my eyes. It shows a whopping 17°C for Prague, 19°C in Southern Moravia (63 - 66°F)! What a great way to welcome Daylight Saving Time!

Too many exclamation points in this post? Well, I’m excited, believe you me!

On Sunday, March 26 at 2am CET, we will set our clocks forward one hour. The České Noviny website has an interesting article on the history of summer time in the Czech Republic.

With the arrival of summer time, I would certainly hope that spring is just around the corner. Officially it is here, but we still have been having temperatures that dip below freezing.

I like the day of Hromnice. It feels like a divider. It is a day on which I am hopeful and a little excited, as if looking forward to a new beginning. We are still freezing our butts off, but today is when the day is officially an hour longer than it was on December 21. It’s easy to notice the difference. It is now 4:15 p.m. and the sun is still out! When I went out this morning, it was -5 degrees, but the birds were singing.

It’ll still be hard to get through the rest of winter. January is when I usually start getting really impatient with the cold, the darkness, the need to bundle up all the time. A couple weeks ago, I thought of a tree that’s growing along a country lane near where Jeff and I used to live in Northern California, and I remembered passing the tree on one of our walks on a chilly January day and seeing it bloom. There’s nothing blooming here yet, but at least February only has 28 days. Let the countdown begin.

Happy Groundhog Day!