[RightWhale]

Yesterday the weatherman said we would have a high of zero to 20 above. It never got close. We had a warmish December the first half of the month, 10-20 most days, but it has been below zero consistently the rest of the winter. This is similar to winters we used to have 30 years ago. The warm winters of 15-5 years ago seem to have gone away.

It's hard to tell from one or two winters what normal should be, but in Alaska we keep records of temperature and sunlight like a fetish and even learn calculus so we can predict how fast the heat leaks out of the walls of the cabin when the temperature differential is over 100 degrees for a month.

[MineralMan]

Well, here, the arctic air mass simply has not made its way into Minnesota. No snow to speak of. It's supposed to rain an inch on Friday here. Feh!

The ice on the lakes near the city is too thin to go ice fishing with any safety. Some flower bulbs I planted this Fall are starting to send up shoots. My poor snowblower is pining away in the garage.

Wierd.