FWIW, NOAA is forecasting a 33%-50% chance of a warmer than *normal* winter across most of the USA from September to March.
OTOH, propane, even with a buy-in to a capped price, is already 15% higher in my area than it was last year. A winter’s worth of firewood is still only slightly less than a full tank of propane.
And, on the third hand, gasoline in my area is down 15 cents from Labor Day, likely due to no hurricanes that actually impeded production. We know people who still used their motor boats this summer, at astronomical costs for a weekend’s fuel.
Everyone appears to be working and people appear to be spending, as usual.
The DBM, of course, is hoping for a rough winter and lots of economic pain for the middle class.
Because of the high Canadian dollar, almost par now with the USD, border states are experiencing a retail sales boom, even car sales are booming, due to prices in Canada being on average 30% higher than American prices on all goods (Canadian retailers are the only ones unhappy with the high Canadian dollar, yet they refuse to lower their prices).
It’s pretty hard to find anyone in these border states that buy into the doom and gloom reports MSM is trying to shovel. Hotels are full, sales are brisk, everyones happy.
Wood is good to me. 40 yard trailer’s worth of bucked trees costs me $450, and yields about 7 cords. More than enough for the winter. Oil OTOH runs about $700 per tankful, and I would use 2 to 3 of those if not for the wood. I’ve been averaging about 50 gallons of oil per year for the last two years.
Here’s to a long, cold, snowy Winter.