Temperatures remained seasonably cold through Christmas. Then on December 27 we hit 56 degrees and it got into the low 60's the next day. That was nothing. On January 2 the temperature hit and unbelievably balmy 72 degrees! Severe storms broke the back of that warm spell but just 6 days later on the 8th of January we were back in the upper 60’s. When Januray was over it went into the books as the 4th warmest on record. Then we got believeing that we wouldn't have any more winetr weather. However, winter returned the first weekend in February with highs in the 20’s and blowing snow. Now we may be looking at a stretch of weather with more cold than warm. So, what’s going on?

Weather tends to be the study of the law of averages. When we experience unusually warm weather, somebody else is having unusually cold weather. Large-scale weather pattern tend to shift but very slowly. Once a weather pattern that gets set up over us it may be over us for a period of 6 weeks before it is replaced. When it does so then the cold air that was someone else’s problem becomes our problem while those folks who were dealing with the cold get a chance to warm-up.

If this is the case we may be dealing with wintry weather up through the first weeks of March. Hey, the groundhog may be right after all!