Yes Or Snow?

I have an antique weather barometer.  It sits up on the TV entertainment center, right behind my pet rocks, Seymour and Element.

It still works, considering it's something out of the 1920s or so.

Which makes Seymour -- at, in his mind, a youthful 4.5 billion years or so old -- snort.

"What does a 90 year old barometer know?"

Well, Seymour, it predicts a change in the weather with steady accuracy, 24-36 hours ahead of the change.

"Phfffffft.  I can do that!"

And when, Seymour, did you last predict snow fall accurately...like say, Monday night's surprise storm back in early December?

"Oh shut up..".

After the drought over much of the country during the spring, summer and autumn of '12, there's a bit more than passing interest in the long range weather forecast for the winter of 2012-2013.  The online Farmer's Almanac hints at normal temperatures and snowfall for Colorado's Front Range, and above average snowfall for the mountains.

If you buy the almanac, that is.

I dropped in on a couple of other online weather prediction sites, to see if they agreed with the un-free versions being touted by the almanac.

I got this from a National Weather Service surrogate thingee:

And I got this from another long-range weather prediction thingee:

From what I gathered in El Ninoese, a negative El Nino is setting up.  Perhaps someone at the Weather Channel can schedule a bit of psychological cheering up for El Nino, so to provide for a more positive outlook.

I also found this map on another site, but I suspect that this map is either of weather phenoms gone by, or another cousin of El Nino's needing even more psychological help:

I'm a bit surprised that the Weather Channel's graphics department got away with that one, but eh...sometimes, it fits.

I'm sure that skiers and the ski industry in Colorado want to see stuff like this:

If they can have it, without scenes like this:

Let's face it:  snow driving and ice, even when prepared for it, holds all kinds of hazards for those who venture out in it:

At any rate, while several differing sources seem to think that the snow and temperature forecast for Colorado in 2012-2013 looks normal (temperatures) and average to above (snowfall), I found an amazing amount of credibility with this particular predictive map for the coming season:

Even Seymour couldn't argue with this one....bottom line for wherever you are:  if it's cold, snowing, blowing and absolutely miserable outside, you'll know you've found it:

Though perhaps you can help fix it with one of these:

Uh...that was supposed to be representative of hot chocolate...but I guess from my kitchen, this is more likely...