Anyone who was sighing "Oh, to be in England, now that spring is here" back in April get another shot now. The weather has been so unseasonably warm that flowers are starting a second blooming season. Robert Browning would be psyched.
The U.K. has been having some wackadoodle weather for a while now. First there was a drought, then an August cold snap that had autumn leaves showing up early, and now a second spring that's flummoxing the royal gardeners:
"It is a very unsual year…I've been gardening for 30 years and have never seen anything like this," said [Royal Botanic Garden] Wakehurst Place's head Andy Jackson.
"We are increasingly seeing that plants are not synchronised with what the weather is doing," he added.
This is weather, not climate, so its relation to global warming patterns isn't clear. BBC meteorologist Liam Dutton puts this particular warm spell down to the position of the jet stream, which is bringing in warm air from the continent. But the overall heating of the climate probably isn't helping these poor beleagured plants figure out what month it is. Maybe as we keep breaking temperature records, we can look forward to having two springs more often. See, global warming isn't all bad!
