Just when you thought winter was over in Columbus, it gets cold again

March: Go figure.

Just when you thought winter was over — or maybe a month after you thought winter was over, this year – it gets cold again. At least once.

So far the forecast says the low temperature is going to drop into the 20s Wednesday night. Imagine that: the 20s. Get to be my age and your 20s seem like 30 years ago.

It’s just more evidence that climate change is a hoax: All these science eggheads say the Earth is getting warmer, and then, just a few weeks after you thought winter was over, it gets cold again. In March.

Instead of “in like a lion and out like a lamb,” the saying should be: “March: Disproving Climate Change Once Every Year.”

The week’s forecast could change, of course, and so far this is only a cold snap: It will be 70 degrees again by Sunday; 80 degrees by Tuesday. And dips into the high 20s Wednesday and the mid-30s Thursday aren’t so bone-chilling cold, if you’re used to it.

It’s when you’ve been bopping around in shorts and flip-flops since January that it feels like parts of you are going to freeze and fall off.

We’ve seen worse, obviously. If you wouldn’t pass out, you’d hold your breath at the end of every February and exhale if March 1 passed without a tornado wrecking some area neighborhood, like the one that hit Brookstone on March 1, 2007.

Or the killer storm that hit Enterprise, Ala., that same day. Or the tornado that hit Salem, Ala., on Feb. 28, 2009, right before snow fell on March 1.

The annual Passing of March First does not mean the storm forecast is clear, in light of the April 19, 2009, tornado that wasted a perfectly good bowling alley in Phenix City before ripping through downtown Columbus on its way to Lakebottom Park.

Imagine the mess that could make downtown today. You’d need a giant blowtorch to untangle all the scaffolds, cranes, ziplines and Broadway sculptures.

Spring thunderstorms may come, but cold snaps come to an end. Sometimes they end dramatically, like the blizzard of March 13, 1993, which had a huge impact. Huge! Major impact! Fantastic! Best impact ever!

I can’t write “huge” without lapsing into Trump-tweet now.

The impact wasn’t just that cars wrecked, roofs collapsed and hikers had to be rescued in the mountains. Or that the power went out and no one went to work, as usual.

The lingering impact was it freaked people out. Like even Yankees who moved here after growing up with snow saw this and thought, “Holy @#$%! I don’t EVER want to get trapped in a blizzard down here again! These people are crazy! Their roads aren’t plowed or salted and they don’t know how to drive in snow! And they’re STILL TRYING!”

After that, it didn’t take an actual snowstorm to shut things down here. A chance of snow was enough. Maybe just a rumor. A hint.

A foreboding of snow, and merchants start posting signs two days early: “Closed Due To Weather.” And then they’re off to stock up on milk, bread and liquor.

That doesn’t mean the schools so early post a snow-day notice. You may slide off the road into a ditch before you get a text that the schools are closing.

If you thought winter was over, even though the low’s to be in the 20s Wednesday, you’re right. Or close, anyway: Spring arrives with the vernal equinox at 6:28 a.m. EDT Monday, March 20.

The post-cold snap forecast for St. Patrick’s Day looks better than an average patron in a dark bar at closing time: Friday’s to be partly cloudy, with a high of 65 and a low around 50.

That might be a little cool for just a green T-shirt with a clover and a beer brand on it.

Better wear the whole leprechaun costume.

This story was originally published March 12, 2017 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Just when you thought winter was over in Columbus, it gets cold again."