Surely this white stuff, the ice and the single-digit thermometer readings were some sort of late-winter hallucination - a flu season fever-dream. 

The forecasters out at Sterling say the mercury will climb to 65 degrees on Sunday - back where it was last Friday. The sun will shine, and Daylight Saving Time will have resumed. And we will sit in some sidewalk cafe, sipping champagne late into the day, listening to the birdies tweet.

We will forget that it was only 8 degrees at BWI-Marshall this morning, just 3 degrees shy of the all-time record low for any day in March in Baltimore (set on this date in 1875). We will forget Monday's record snowfall (for the date), and the record-low reading of 10 degrees on the same morning. Let Sterling remember such things.

We will put behind us this pitiful winter, with its feeble 9.1 inches of snow - precisely half the 30-year average for Baltimore. We will think of snowdrops and jonquils and seed catalogs, and watch for the return of the robins and our 401Ks.

...And we will say Phooey! to those like Justin Roberti, at AccuWeather.com, who sent this bit of advice this morning:

"Don't put your winter clothes, snow brushes and shovels away just yet. Computer models are hinting at a see-saw weather pattern through the first part of April."