Sun-rattled roses burst out in bloom on President Street yesterday.

Photo by: Mark Reutter

While not as dramatic as ice floes melting at the polar caps, we submit the above image as evidence of colossal climatic confusion as Baltimore undergoes another cold-challenged winter.

Rose bushes blooming in mid-January? They’re doing that all over town.

We found this clump yesterday amid the constant traffic streaming down President Street near the Shot Tower. The petals that opened up in the luminous sunlight (bringing temperatures a dozen degrees above normal) were stunted but still fully pink.

For a city accustomed to hunkering down against bitter weather this time of year, yesterday was a break-out day.

Joggers in shorts and tank tops trotted through Patterson Park, diners stepping out of Little Italy restaurants shed their winter coats, and a twenty-something resolutely strode down Fleet (at Broadway) in aqua-blue flip flops.

People tweeted about crocus sightings, and in any sunny part of the city where daffodils had been planted, they were shooting up out of the ground yesterday.

The same thing is happening all over the country.

A Boston University professor has found that, on average, plants are blooming 11 days earlier than in Henry Thoreau’s times. The author of Walden (1854) was, it seems, a meticulous record keeper, recording bloom times for the plants he saw on his walks.

More roses bask in the spring-like weather across from the Shot Tower yesterday. (Photo by Mark Reutter)

A Brief Exception of Cold?

Today, expect more of the sun-filled same.

Then prepare for subfreezing temperatures on Tuesday and even snow (?!) or sleet later in the week, say the forecasters.

To be followed by another bout of 50-and-above weather, perhaps putting this January in Baltimore in the “warm-maggedon” record books.

Also confused by the balmy January weather, these daffodils shoot up in North Baltimore. (Photo by Fern Shen)