Blackberry winter
A late-spring cold snap named for blooming blackberries.
The term reflects a belief that such cold helps blackberry canes begin growing. Other regional names for similar spring cold snaps include dogwood winter, whippoorwill winter, locust winter, and redbud winter.
Quick Facts
- Alternate names
- dogwood winter
- whippoorwill winter
- locust winter
- redbud winter
- linsey-woolsey britches winter
- East asian name
- Miss Ban's Winter (小班冷)
- English equivalent
- blackthorn winter
- Finnish term
- takatalvi
Facts from the source article.
In media
Blackberry Winter is the title of a 1946 short story by Robert Penn Warren, frequently anthologized. A song of the same name by Edith Lindeman and Carl Stutz became a back-door million-seller as the B-side of Mitch Miller's recording of The Yellow Rose of Texas, a number 1 hit in the U.S. in 1955. The name also appears on a classical/symphonic work by Conni Ellisor and a ballet based on it, as well as a song by Alec Wilder and Loonis McGlohon. The autobiography of anthropologist Margaret Mead, published in 1972, is titled Blackberry Winter.
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