It's a black winter cover, and the area gets sunlight for many hours each day - no trees, no really tall houses around it - when I reach my hand into the skimmer the water at the top feels HOT.

When I had the leak, there was one spot outside the pool that was REALLY wet - but when I checked last week, the ground is damp all the way around the pool - not really wet in any particular spot - but damp everywhere. That wouldn't IMO correspond with a leak.

I'll probably open the pool this week and hope for the best. I was just thinking that the sun beating down on the black cover might have caused the water to begin evaporating at a faster pace since it's warmed up these past two months - and since it's not a solar blanket, but a cover that overhangs the pool, it seems possible that water could indeed evaporate and escape. But who knows!