I don’t think I need to tell you, readers, but it’s been a hell of a winter. It was cold, and then it was bitterly cold, and then it was subzero – and then it was merely cold again. It snowed for days on end. We dug out. It snowed again. I’m pretty sure it’s been snowing since last August.

But as I write this, April’s famed showers are, in theory, bringing about May flowers. If Mother Nature can refrain from further torture, perhaps the buds of the real estate recovery recently reported by Realtors can finally bloom.

Year-over-year data provided some hopeful signs – single-family sales in Connecticut jumped 6 percent in 2013 versus 2012, and condo sales were up nearly 11 percent, according to data from The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record. But under winter’s onslaught, sales of single-family homes were up only 2.4 percent year-over-year in January, while condo sales declined 7.2 percent. Somewhat more encouragingly, the median price year-over-year stayed steady for single-families at $230,000, and the median price for condos dropped only $500, to $162,500.

And then there’s the nagging problem of Connecticut’s lengthy foreclosure process. Foreclosures were up 11.4 percent last year compared to 2012, with the number of single-family foreclosures up more than 18 percent.

But real estate world is a fast-paced one, and agents say January’s closings tell only part of the tale. Delayed and dampened by the traditional winter slump – and this year’s extraordinary weather – the market is heating up as we head into spring.

Reporting from the front lines, agents say it’s gangbusters out there – multiple offers, offers over listing, all signs pointing to a robust, if compressed, spring market. But real estate agents are a notoriously optimistic bunch – they are salesmen, after all.

Will the latest surge in sales be enough to bring the Nutmeg State out of its real estate slump? Unfortunately, probably not, at least not by itself. The state is recovering at a lopsided rate, with some counties doing better than others, and others not doing all that well. Multifamily construction is slowly picking up again after years of stagnation, but those buildings are still a ways from completed.

But there are other hopeful signs. Unemployment dropped to 7 percent in February; the foreclosure pipeline is slowly unclogging; and after all, it can’t snow forever.

Nor can the remnants of the recession last forever, though it may feel that way at times. Connecticut’s recovery is perhaps slower than other states’, but the signs are stubbornly, quietly positive. It’s been a rocky road, but the end is in sight. As long as it doesn’t snow again.