People have been saying it for the past few days, but I’m going to give credit where credit is due. Mother nature has smiled upon us these past few days.

I didn’t mind the snow and the rain too much this winter. I think that was largely because I’m new to the area. This is my first winter here, and I didn’t have any expectations – especially after my early assumptions were proven false.

Having been raised on California’s coastline, I was surprised to find out not only did it get cold, but it snowed on the coast and it is humid in the summer. I suppose I assumed the coastal winds swept the humidity away during the summer and the waters kept the area warmer during the winter. I later did the math and figured out it’s that California is a desert — not the ocean — that keeps it warm and dry.

Silly me. I think all good things come from the ocean.

So, I didn’t have expectations as to how long the cold and gray would last. I lived by the maxim, “out of sight, out of mind,” did my best to shut out my inner sunshine monger and focused on the other beautiful things in the world.

But when this sunshine poked its head out and my car temperature gauge showed it was above 60, I felt like new life was breathed into me. (It also, however, breathed into me a virus, which I’ve been trying to shake off.)

As much as I have enjoyed driving with my windows down, there sits in the back of my mind an agent of doom.

Last week, when it snowed, I had a little heart-to-heart with a meteorologist who said that while our cold spell may have broken, I shouldn’t get too attached to the sunshine this week because it isn’t going to stay.

Apparently, the west coast is having a “moderate” El Nino, which translates into increased storms for us and is why we’ve had more snow this year than in previous years. Or so I’m told. As we’ve already established, this is my first winter.

But if the last 12 months were a calendar year, we would have broken a record for precipitation. And because of the weather patterns in the west, we very well may. I was told to expect rain from these El Ninos for at least the next 90 days.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the weather we’ve had, a little rain cloud is sitting in the back of mind.

So, enjoy the weather while you can.

Leila Roche is a reporter for the Suffolk News-Herald. She can be reached at 757.934.9613 or at leila.roche@suffolknewsherald.com