BACK TO THE BEACH
Temperatures hit the 80s and the Blackstone Valley hits the beach
LINCOLN — Never mind spring. After an unusually chilly season, Mother Nature seemed to say to heck with it altogether yesterday, leapfrogging ahead of the calendar with summer-like temperatures nudging the 90-degree mark.
And Jill Carter couldn’t have been happier about it.
“I’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” said the professional nanny as she sat on a blanket and curled her toes in the sand on the shore of Olney Pond at Lincoln Woods State Park. “It’s been a long winter.”
An Attleboro resident, Carter took advantage of the above-average temperatures to do some outdoor babysitting at one of her go-to recreational spots – her first trip to park this season. She’s just about maxed out her appetite for indoor projects to keep her young charge entertained, but the roughly 3-year-old boy seemed content to nibble from a jar of fresh blueberries and a crinkly cellophane package of mini-muffins amid a warm breeze, overlooking the water.
He wasn’t alone. On the warmest day since last October, scores of people de- scended on the recently-refurbished state park to bask in the sun, fish, walk dogs and enjoy the profusion of springtime greenery. Some even went swimming.
“It’s been a long, gloomy spring so far,” said Jenna Clouse of Providence, watching from the shore as a toddler disappeared briefly below the surface of the water, a few feet away. “Hopefully we’re done with the 50-degree days.”
In addition to the boaters and bathers, some came to the park to work.
It was Park Naturalist Cole Hersey’s second day on the job. And they’ve been like manna from Heaven for the trained observer of the outdoors, with signs of the season everywhere he looks. The fiddlehead ferns are pushing their way out of the earth, he says, and so are the bluets – tiny clumps of lavender-blue flowers that hug the ground.
“I saw my first yellow-rumped warblers yesterday,” Hersey beamed. “Now that’s a sure sign of spring.”
Lincoln Woods State Park doesn’t officially open until Memorial Day. But longtime concessionaires Sofia Franco and her husband, Pepe, who run the eponymously named “Pepe’s” snack bar overlooking Olney Pond, were busy getting ready for the seasonal crush. The sparkly new countertop was packed with colorful, squiggle-shaped Crazy Straws, Laffy Taffy and lollipops, while the menu board cried out to the hungry with everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to clamcakes and french fries.
Tacos and chicken fingers are probably the hottest sellers, says Sofia, who’s worked in family-run concessions at state parks and beaches for decades.
How could she not welcome the weather? It’s what brings people to the park, she says.
“We just opened,” said Franco. “This is our second day.”
Even the National Weather Service seemed to drop its normally clinical tone and gush about the forecast.
“Temps off to the races this morning with 82 degrees already at Norwood, Mass.!” the NWS exclaimed at 10 o’clock yesterday morning.
The weather service says the above-average temperatures will stick around at least through today and tomorrow, as temperatures break the 80-degree mark both days. With humidity rising and dewpoints hovering somewhere near the 60-degree mark, however – particularly today – it’s going to feel like a hot and sticky summer day.
The weather prescription may be the cure for cabin fever, but the NWS says it also has the same ingredients to percolate an afternoon thunderstorm that could bring briefly heavy rains, gusty winds – and maybe even a tornado.
As temperatures rise after mid-day today, the NWS Storm Prediction Center said, “a brief tornado cannot be ruled out.”
While it’s safe to break out the Bermuda shorts and floppies for the rest of the week, temperatures are expected to moderate toward the weekend. Saturday is expected to be mostly cloudy, with daytime high temperatures in the mid-70s, but by early next week they’ll be back in the 60s.
Yesterday, anyway, Tracy Wilhelmsen of Cumberland and her daughter, Olivia, 3, were celebrating the belated arrival of the warm weather with the season’s maiden voyage to Lincoln Woods, dressed for a day at the beach.
“At this point we’ll take whatever we can get,” Wilhelmsen said. “It’s nice to get out of the house finally. What is it, May? I feel like we slipped right through spring.”