The sight of little kids wearing bathing suits and spraying each other with a garden hose was odd enough. Then the teenagers emerged, moving along the sidewalk in groups, squinting in the bright sunlight like creatures roused from hibernation. The street’s elderly matriarchs provided the finishing touch. When they settled on my neighbour’s front porch, it officially became summer — at least temporarily.

This year’s sudden transition from damp, dark spring to soaring summer heat dramatically illustrated the extent to which weather defines the spirit of the city. The change in clime, and in mood, is usually more gradual and therefore less noticeable.

The cooler weather of the last day or two suggests things are back to normal weather-wise, which means we will ease into summer with a mixture of good, bad and awful days. Earlier this month, however, we catapulted from one season to the next and the transformation in the city was stunning. Almost overnight, we went from being a grey, dreary, inward-looking place, to a place where half-naked children frolic in their yards, teenagers smile and elderly women take to their front porches to watch the neighbourhood go by.

The parks, home to local dogs and their shivering owners for the last six months, filled with people playing games, soaking up the sun or reading something other than a computer screen. An explosion of noise — laughing, talking and shouting — replaced the silence of the grey days.

Winter is not a complete write-off when it comes to bringing the city and its residents together. The streets are beautiful when they are clad in new snow, and when the stuff really piles up, it forces people armed with shovels out of their homes and into their yards, ready to commiserate with neighbours they haven’t seen in weeks, even months.

When the snow goes and the days get longer, however, the sun is like a magnet that draws us outside. The first summer-like day in April or May always make me think of a Sudanese friend who moved to Canada years ago.

He arrived in November, suffered through winter and just when he thought he would never be warm again, the sun came out and the daffodils bloomed.

“I can’t believe this is the same place,” he said. “If it was like this all the time, this country would be full of people.”

He had a point.

– April Lindgren teaches at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, where she specializes in local news and urban affairs reporting; april.lindgren@arts.ryerson.ca.