This is the first post in an occasional summer series on the city’s public pools. Stay tuned.

It’s time to take a dip in your neighborhood pool. So decrees Mayor Vince Gray. The weather gods disagree. You, presumably, do too.

Gray officially kicked off the summer pool season this morning with a press conference at the rain-speckled, windswept Harry Thomas Sr. Pool on Lincoln Road NE. Surrounded by a group of swimsuit-wearing children, shivering in the 57-degree rain, Gray proclaimed it “a beautiful day in the neighborhood” and announced the opening of 19 outdoor pools, four children’s pools, and 11 spray parks beginning tomorrow.

As a goosebumped lifeguard’s umbrella was toppled over by the powerful winds, nearly injuring her, Gray egged on the children and city officials around him. “We have two groups: those who will jump in, and those who if they hesitate too long will be pushed in,” he said.

Then he hoisted himself up onto a lifeguard’s chair and watched as the freezing children and a small group of his city officials—-including the directors of the departments of parks and recreation, human services—-plunged into the pool.