Would it just freaking snow already?

My little Weatherbug display tells me it's 41 degrees, with winds out of the ENE at around 9 mph. They deduce the wind chill at 33 at my local reporting station, John Adams Elementary School, one block over.

Typically, my body does not do very well with these transitional seasons. Today, I'm all sniffly and really need a tissue nearby at any given moment. But this isn't much of a surprise; it's the day before Thanksgiving. After a lifetime spent in the Mid-Atlantic, I've learned what happens at this time of year: We never know what will happen this time of year.

Last year, it was comfortable enough to wear shorts to work. Folks were in flip-flops and we were enjoying the warmth's swan song.

This year, well...the wind chill just dropped to 32.

But that's the thing that bugs me most about the transitional seasons. They never seem to end. Look, we know winter's coming - it's already hit parts of the country like Buffalo and Denver. Let's get some snow and kickoff winter and be done with it. Let's get winter started, so we can get closer to spring.

(And I should note that when I say transitional seasons, I don't mean fall and spring generically; I mean that time of year when summer and winter are on the doorstep, on the cusp of breaking through. It's not a months-long process, it's a few weeks.)

Yet, we're supposed to get rain this afternoon. Is there anything more miserable than a cold, windy rain?

Indeed, there is: A cold, windy rain that, a few weeks later, would be a blizzard.

At least then we'd know winter had started.