Yep, this pretty much marks the absolute end of anything even remotely related to winter. Hello plum rains and a typhoon sitting off the Philippines catching our eye. It seems like the winter of 13-14 sort of hung around for a while.

I've been reading about this year's predicted El Nino. See http://is.gd/en7sBp for example. So far, it looks like a pretty standard spring, albeit with a bit of a late start.