which will come sooner, true spring, or the end of my research project?

Today during Swedish class our teacher, who has lived all of her life in Luleå, and looks to be at least my age, and probably older, said of this winters weather that she has never seen one like this--with so little snow and such long stretches of warm weather. There is nothing remarkable in it warming up to just above freezing during the winter, but normally it drops back to well below freezing straight away. Today is the 8th day in a row of temperatures that have been mostly +1 to +3 during the days, with a chance of dropping below freezing at nights. Last week Monday and Tuesday all of the roads were deep with puddles of snow melt, but by the end of the week most of the water had managed to drain away (probably some of the drains had been blocked with ice, which melted) or evaporate, but then it snowed again this weekend, which has turned into slush and puddles on all the roads again. I try to think positively, and I know that it is still possible for to have real winter weather before true spring arrives, yet it is discouraging to see what looks like April weather, with most of the snow melted away, while it is only February, which should be one of the coldest months of the year.

In other news, now that I have finally finished all of the extra figures I have been working on for my report I have sent a draft of the paper (with a results section this time!) to my colleague for comment. There is a chance that this project will come to a close before we lose the last of our snow. I sure hope so.