I checked.

In March, spring arrived on time. The sun crossed the equator around March 20, heralding the arrival of the new season.

That was more than a month ago, but it’s like this every year: life becomes a giant ketchup commercial, as we sit in anticipation of spring actually stepping up to the plate. It is the most rebellious of seasons, the frustrating toddler who won’t be strapped into his car seat, for months.

I remember volunteering for a Girl Scout camping trip for my daughter’s troop. They set the date for June 15, and I spent the night in a tent in six layers of clothes cursing the spring, believing it should be banished as a season. We’d be a lot happier if we believed winter turned to summer without a buffer season. Every nice day thrown our way in say, May, would be a gift from winter instead of feeling like spring went missing.

Spring fails us almost every year. Nothing that has been ranked so consistently a failure is still so coveted. We’re much too nice to spring.

My husband says that when he retires, he’s done with northeast winters. He’s not a fan of Florida and so I’ve come to believe the place he envisions us living out our golden years doesn’t actually exist. I think it’s a place in his mind and so I imagine us driving around the country one day trying to match his inner postcard with reality.

Statistician Nate Silver ranked unpredictable weather cities, comparing daily weather of 120 U.S. cities to their long-range averages. The winners, those places that can legitimately claim that their weather “will change if you wait a minute,” were clustered in the upper Midwest and Great Plains. Rapid City, South Dakota is the most unpredictable. Buffalo was ranked 68th, far more predictable than, say, Springfield, Ill., which has the 16th most unpredictable weather.

Isn’t it nice to know there are others that have it worse?

Here’s some interesting notes about Rapid City: its temperature might be 30 degrees in January, or just as easily 12. It’s snowy and windy and prone to big, unexpected winter storms. And it has a thunderstorm on almost 25 percent of days from July through September, more than the national average.

I know we think we have it bad, and Buffalo does get plenty of lake-effect snow and unpredictable wind patterns. But its humidity levels and cloud cover patterns are fairly predictable, according to statistics, which cuts down on severe weather outside of winter and early spring.

The most predictable cities for weather?

Honolulu, San Diego, Los Angeles.

But I doubt my husband would ever agree to move to any of those places. He is not a fan of California and Hawaii is too far away and too exotic for his sensibilities.

The best places to retire seem to change year by year, which, of course, has more to do with marketing and publishing than anything else. But there are a few standouts that made this year’s list.

Here’s one surprise: Fargo, N.D., which is cold but affordable with a median home price of $218,000, and Pittsburgh made the list, which has cold weather, but a median home price of $129,000 and the cost of living is 12% below the national average. Pittsburgh was also the only city in the Northeast to make the cut. The Southeast had the most cities on the list, including Asheville, N.C., Bella Vista, Ark., and Jacksonville, Fla.

Most surprising to a lot of people is how expensive Florida has become. Unless you bought your condo back in the days of its early development, you’re facing astronomical housing costs in the most popular areas. Florida doesn’t have income tax, but property taxes are high, according to tax experts, so retirement lists often exclude Florida in their rankings now.

But there’s another truth to moving to a new state in retirement: Lots of retirees move, buy a home, and a few months later turn around and move home again because they didn’t like life in their dream location. The reasons can vary from wanting to remain closer to grandkids to not liking the lack of seasons or struggling to connect with new friends.

Some of them move back to the snow and head over to the hardware store to replace their shovel.

I keep telling my husband there’s more to life than sunshine.