What does he Know?
Don’t believe anything you saw or heard about Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow yesterday, and all this six more weeks of winter stuff.I have inside information he was an imposter.The real PP peeked his head from his burrow and said, “What shadow? Phew, it's spring already, or is it?”He’s confused, and I hear under mild sedation.No getting around it; so far this winter is a washout.You remember winter, don’t you? It's the coldest season of the year, located between autumn and spring, from an old Germanic word that means "time of water." Old Man Winter, no doubt pining away for the good old days, when it hit North America in 1607 causing Lake Superior to be covered in ice until June.Instead of temperatures this week like this: Washington, DC: 72 degrees, where the average is 44. New York City: 63 degrees, where the average is 39. Chicago, buried under about 2 feet of snow a year ago, is having its warmest winter in 80 years. In Bismarck, ND, 5.9 inches of snow have fallen this winter — the average is 29 inches. Daffodils are already in bloom in NW Mississippi. The National Climatic Data Center says 19 percent of the USA had snow on the ground this Wednesday. As opposed to a year ago when 52 percent of the country was snow-covered.Meteorologists, who have been known to be wrong before, say it's all about the jet stream cutting off the cold air for much of the winter, sending it north of the USA.All of which is causing ski resorts to artificially produce their own snow, ice fishing derbies to be canceled and other such calamities.So...how are you coping with this unexpected weather?