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Winter will come,

B Ken Johnston

Is winter finally arriving this week?
Spells of 50+ degree weather in the past few weeks have had everyone second guessing the seasons.
I even heard a couple of people say they figured their perennials would be coming up anytime. Well today the temperatures are supposed to start dropping down into the 20s for highs and stay below freezing for rest of the week.
Some people have started their holiday shopping but others have said it hardly feels like Christmas is only a month away. Without Jack Frost nipping at our noses and no snow on the ground people are finding hard to get into the spirit of things.
However, on the other side of the nice September-like weather, people haven’t had to shovel snow, warm their cars up, heat their homes too much, or worry about slipping when walking.
After the cool summer we had it was kind of nice

to have a warmer fall than normal.
Some weather forecasters have said that with El Nino doing its thing off the west coast that we are in for a fairly mild winter with very little snow. That is bad news for winter sporting enthusiasts like snowmobilers and perhaps even ice fishermen. But it might give the energy supply a bit of a break and help get the out-of-this-world natural gas prices down a bit.
A lot of people think we have just made winter a month shorter... if the forecasters are right that that is true. But as anybody who watches the long range forecasts every day knows, weather is one of the few things that we can really accurately forecast over the long haul.
One thing is for sure, winter will come, just how harsh is the question?
–Until then,
Ken