Well, I admit that my winter prediction made a month ago did not materialize. It got cold in the middle of the month as I expected, but the cold did not last long and from there it warmed up again, something I did not think would happen.
Looking forward, this coming week the temperatures will be above normal and the following week looks to be below normal. After that, it looks like the temperatures will moderate and be at or above normal into early March. This is not to say there will not be any cold days, but on average it does not look to be all that cold. This winter just does not seem to want to act like a New England winter.
As you all can see, the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. In fact the historically coldest time of the year is Jan 22 to Jan 26 and that is now behind us. All of this will result in only a minor building of the ice, most likely between next weekend and the derby. After that the higher sun angle and the longer days will start to kick in.
Again, I could be wrong and I have been more wrong this year than I have been right with these long range forecasts. Sorry about that.
I also realize this is bad news to some and good news to others, but in the end it looks like this will go down as a very mild winter.
R2B