Editorial: Hello sunshine!

After weeks of brutal cold and record snowfall that blanketed the East End, the burst of warmth to start the week invigorated the soul.

Winter’s icy grip refused to loosen. Snow piled high. The cold lingered. And the bays — normally alive with the slow winter rhythm of tides — froze over.

For the region’s oyster growers, the deep freeze devastated an industry that depends on those waters remaining open and moving. Peconic Bay’s cool waters are what give local shellfish their prized flavor. Instead, the prolonged cold spell locked the bay into a destructive ice pack that tore docks apart, dragged buoys across the bay and ripped oyster farming gear loose from its anchors.

The area’s acclaimed oyster farmers suffered staggering losses. Preliminary estimates from the Long Island Oyster Growers Association suggest at least 30% of oyster inventory may be lost, not counting the cost of repairing or replacing damaged equipment. Because oysters take two or three years to reach market size, the ripple effects could stretch well beyond this summer.

Considerable damage occurred on land as well. Pipes burst in homes and businesses across the region. Municipal road crews spent weeks battling frozen infrastructure and relentless snowfall.

When Winter Storm Hernando dumped more than two feet of snow across parts of eastern Long Island in late February, highway departments were already stretched thin after weeks of storms. Riverhead Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski said the department had to dip into reserve funds to keep up with the cost of salt and road treatment.

What looked picturesque from a distance was, for many residents and local businesses, an expensive and exhausting winter.

The only people celebrating the bone-numbing cold were plumbers, heating companies and ice boaters. The latter dusted off their sails for the first time in more than a decade to soar across the frozen creeks.

Then came this week.

The mercury climbed into the 70s — a welcome, if perhaps brief, taste of spring. Somehow, snow is back in the forecast for the end of the week.

Nonetheless, the sun is hanging a little higher and setting a little later each evening. Seasonal restaurants are reopening their doors. Storefronts that sat quiet in January are coming back to life.

Soon enough, the familiar rhythm of the East End’s busy season will return. Boats will fill the harbors. Farm stands will brim with their bounty. The region’s love-hate relationship with visitors and second-home owners will return — along with the annual ritual of inching through traffic on Route 58 and Sound Avenue.

For now, though, we can simply enjoy the warmth. In a time when so much divides us — locally, nationally and globally — one thing almost everyone can agree on is the simple comfort of a little sunshine.

At least until the complaints begin about how hot it is.

That’s human nature.