It’s Snow Joke

That card, Mother Nature. She’s kept us in stitches all year with her bag of wacky weather tricks--snapping homes in half and sending them sliding down rain-soaked hills, hurling ocean waves into living rooms and depositing slippery sea creatures on the sofa.

With all due respect to Mother N., not very subtle.

What a nice surprise, then, to see that after several months of walloping our delicate weather sensibilities, she has settled on a more understated and ironic approach: Snow, in Southern California, on April Fools’ Day.

In typically nippy Washington, D.C., it was 75 degrees Wednesday. Up the Atlantic seaboard, Baltimoreans were sweating it out at 77.

Back here in sunny Southern Cal, a smiling woman was driving a big blue pickup truck with a bed full of snow through the almost-always-balmy San Fernando Valley.

Apropos, you must admit, on the first day of April, also known as All Fools’ Day or April Fools’ Day, the day for tricks and pranks. Such festivals of foolery have been observed for centuries in several countries.

The origin of the modern holiday--which had local radio deejays feigning brawls with rock stars and UCLA folklorists joshing one another over nonexistent million-dollar grants--is obscure. But it was probably born of celebrations of the vernal equinox--when nature fooled weather-obsessed humans by turning winter into spring--and the adoption of the reformed calendar in 16th century France.

In 1564, the French decided that Jan. 1--not April 1 as was previously the custom--should be New Year’s Day. Anyone who resisted the calendar swap was preyed upon by pranksters and dubbed poisson d’avril, meaning an April Fish.

Ouch.

The modern holiday also resembles the March 25 Hilaria festival of ancient Rome and the Holi festival of India, ending March 31, both of which mark the long-awaited goodbye to winter.

Technically, of course, winter left a couple weeks ago, but that didn’t keep the snow level from dropping to nearly 2,000 feet in the wee hours of April Fools’ Day, coating the Antelope Valley with white stuff. It’s supposed to be spring in Glendale, as well, but weekday duffers had to keep a close eye on their fairway shots to keep from losing the white ball against the snow-covered Verdugo Hills.

By the 18th century, the holiday was commonly observed in England. A Scots victim is known as a gowk, or cuckoo.

Double ouch.

“It’s pretty common to have at least one day a year when people can act foolish,” said UCLA folklorist Robin Evanchuk, who, upon receiving a note from a colleague Wednesday that the folklore program had received a giant monetary grant, replied that officials had already given the money to a needier cause.

“The whole idea is on April 1, if you do something silly, it’s OK; it’s allowed.”

The one thing that is not allowed, according to folklore, is losing your temper over an April Fools’ Day prank. That is a very good way to bring yourself a whole batch of bad luck.

It was unclear late Wednesday--as the freezing level began to drop again and the snow and rain came in fits and starts--if the be-a-good-sport rule applied during rush hour. Would honking maniacally be a violation, for example, if the driver who cut you off during your much-extended commute was clearly a fool?

“The weather’s been kind of a bad joke,” agreed meteorologist John Sherwin of WeatherData Inc.

But the storm, which swung in from the North Pacific Ocean, should have largely moved out of the area by today, he said.

Unfortunately, it would probably be leaving without delivering an April Fools’ Day clap of thunder, meteorologists predicted. Sad news for any Los Angeles corn farmers, since legend holds that thunder on April 1 foretells an excellent corn crop.

On top of that, another cold front was expected to arrive Friday.

This one should be milder than the April Fools’ Day blast, though.

No joke.

Really.