Of course, you probably realize that Jimmy or Phil or Whoever can say what they want -- the first day of spring on the calendar is actually almost seven weeks away. And here in Wisconsin, spring does not mean no more snow anyway.
When I was at Holy Hill back around 1990 or so, we had a huge snowstorm at the end of the first week in May. It was heavy and wet and took down lots of trees and power-lines. The nearby town of Hartford made national news because it looked like a tornado had gone through.
On the liturgical front, February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple. So in a sense, it is the real end of the Christmas season. It is also called Candlemas because of the custom of blessing candles on this day. There are obvious associations with pre-Christian religious customs about the coming of light and all that stuff. Many neo-pagans celebrate it as the beginning (peep!) of spring, under the name of Imbolc. Some claim that even the idea of the weather on this day being a sign of what is to come goes back to those old Gaelic traditions.
UPDATE: A pagan friend reminds me that many pagans celebrate Imbolc on February 1. Nature-based religions and traditions are more fluid than the Christian one when it comes to calendars, so people can party on either -- or even better, on both days.
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