If the weather seems broken, as though the seasons are in a battle for your soul, it must be sprinter season.

By sprinter season, I don’t mean the pricey giant glamping vans flourishing on the west side of Bend. I mean it as a portmanteau of “spring” and “winter.”

There’s a saying some people here in Central Oregon are fond of, and it’s most apt this time of year: “Don’t like the weather? Wait five minutes.” We in Central Oregon have experienced a mash-up of the two seasons over the past two weeks, with continued clashing in the forecast.

After some very mild weather that included highs in the 50s in early February, we experienced last week’s return to powdery snow and wintry temps — which one might expect in February ’23, if it was February 1923 and “climate change” meant embarking on a train journey south, possibly to a sanitarium for a respite before one had a nervous breakdown.

Then came last Saturday, when Central Oregonians were out in force for a taste of blue skies and near-50 weather. Then came this week, with its highs in the 30s and intermittent snow flurries.

Central Oregon residents embody the mix of winter and spring during sprinter season. Reasonable fans of snow would just as soon have winter behave like winter, maybe even extend into the spring. They’ll tell you how the chairs on Mt. Bachelor used to run on July 4. These hardy folk can be identified by their complaints when temperatures approach 80.

At the same time, there are a lot of folks who find shoveling sidewalks, scraping windshields and enduring fractures from slips on ice somewhat of a hassle. They would just as soon have spring start sometime in January, right after the best part of winter, the December holidays, is over. Two more months of it is just overkill.

Sun-snow cycles and temperature swings from single digits to 50 are just part of life on the side of a mountain range. I’ve lived here over two decades, long enough to know the wonky winter-spring pendulum is just the sparring of sprintertime. It’s actually entertaining if you dress appropriately and avoid making firm plans for weather-dependent activities.

Personally, though, I’m rooting for spring. I might even be ready for sprummer.