A Winter Wonder as Snow Remains No-Show in North

Bulbs are up. Convertible tops are down. Ice cream cone sales are soaring. Dogs and cats are shedding.

Around New England, the signs of spring are everywhere.

And so are Christmas wreaths, a curious contradiction in a region that equates rugged winters with moral superiority, physical fortitude--and most of all, normality.

Throughout the region, a wild and wacky weather pattern has taken over, transforming snowbound assumptions into sun-streaked fantasies. For three straight months, New England has been uncharacteristically warm, sunny and dry.

“Unusual is certainly a term you could use for what’s been happening,” said meteorologist Robert Gilman, president of New England Weather Science. “Unprecedented is another.”

Ushering in December, Boston baked last weekend in a record-setting 71 degrees of sunshine. Temperatures at midweek hovered in the mid-60s, at least 20 degrees above average. Thursday’s high could bounce into the mid-70s.

After shopping for her Christmas tree Saturday in shorts, Liz Oddleifson of suburban Hingham, Mass., called her mother in Honolulu.

“I told her the weather here’s just like Hawaii,” Oddleifson said.

Well, maybe more like Southern California.

Downright Mediterranean, Gilman said: “Fair skies, sinking air, semi-arid.” Not even Northern California can compete, he said, for along with balmy temperatures, the Boston area in particular has enjoyed the sunniest autumn on record.

“Typically, autumn--especially November--is an extremely depressing, dank, gloomy month around here,” Gilman said Tuesday. “If it’s not raining, it’s drizzling. There’s always the threat of rain or snow. That’s what late autumn is around here.”

Cherry Tree in Full Bloom

But this season, the Boston Common at noon still buzzes with brown-baggers catching midday rays. Many outdoor restaurants remain open, well beyond their normal periods of operation.

“I was in the Boston Public Garden last week and there was a cherry tree in full bloom,” publicist Sally Jackson said. “I went up to it and said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re going to be really sorry you did this.’ ”

Normally a fair-weather golfer, her husband, political consultant Paul Nace, has been tooling to the greens with the top down on his 30-year-old convertible.

Around the region, heating oil consumption is down: a plus for consumers; not such good news for suppliers.

The unseasonal warmth also brings serious environmental consequences. Maine, state climatologist Greg Zielinski said Tuesday, “could easily be approaching the driest year on record for the last 107 years.”

Especially in northern New England, the lack of rain threatens fragile ecological systems. Reservoirs are low, and residents who rely on backyard wells are worried as their own water supplies dwindle. The region’s agricultural crops depend on precipitation that to date has failed to materialize.

Maine has gone so far as to convene a Drought Task Force to assess the implications of a dry spell that began last spring.

Zielinski said, “The funny thing is, there really is not any specific thing that can be pointed to as a cause for this climatic condition. It’s just one of those years.”

‘This Seems Like a Nice Reprieve’

Although steeped in tradition and predictability, the populace seems unperturbed by the peculiar atmospheric turn of events.

At Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, psychologist Curtis Hsia said, “I don’t think there’s this overwhelming sense that the world is ending or that something horrible is going to happen just because the weather is nice.”

Students at his university are spending far more time outdoors than is usual at this time of year, Hsia said, and if anything, “this seems like a nice reprieve. There are other things--Sept. 11, for example--that are more pressing on people’s minds.”

Precisely how long the temperate respite will last is hard to say, said Maine climatologist Zielinski.

But, he said, “most of the forecasts for the northern tier of the country are for a colder-than-average winter.”

At New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington Observatory, staff meteorologist Charlie Lopresti on Tuesday predicted “redevelopments off the coast” in coming weeks, “a good sign that a winter pattern is coming.”

Early indications, said Lopresti, are that things may be changing by next week.

From the highest point in New England--6,288 feet--Lopresti said, “You know what? I wouldn’t worry about it. I bet we’re going to get a pretty good winter.”

Proving for eternity that there truly is no accounting for taste, Lopresti said, “A day at the beach is not what I’m looking for.”