This has been the mildest winter I can ever remember. And now it is damned near over.

[Stinky The Clown]

We have daffodils at our front steps that are admittedly sheltered, but they're up very high and the buds appear ready to burst.

Tomorrow, like the first robin sighting, pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

The Daytona 500 flag is about to be run

It is huge news here that we may actually get :gasp: accumulating snow. The predicted 1 to 2 inches will more than double our total so far this "winter".

La Nina and a constrained Polar Oscillation is the scientific reason. The fact is, global warming, as has been predicted by real scientists, and not disproved by the right wingers' hack "scientists", causes not warmer or colder weather, necessarily, but more wild swings and more extreme weather.

A winter this warm is, indeed, extreme weather.

[MADem]

1. I am taking this reprieve as "payback" for last winter!

78 inches of stuff and I did a lot of shoveling. I was starting to feel like the poor schmuck in that "Snow, Beautiful Snow" essay that was running around the internet a few years back!

[TheWraith]

8. Only 78 inches and that's a bad year? Bah!

Around here an AVERAGE year is 90+ inches.

[MADem]

9. It's a long ass driveway, made longer by having to park at the far end of it

because I had to park close to the door for a temporarily quite substantially handicapped relative. My shoveling duties were more than tripled and I am no spring chicken. It was sheer murder!

[onehandle]

2. Outside of Philly we had six inches of snow on Halloween. I expected a nightmare winter.

Nope. And I'm back in Atlanta this week. It is Spring.

[Confusious]

3. My tomato plants are still alive!

Granted, I live in Tucson, but we still get cold enough to kill them. Looks like I'll have to do a minimum of work to get a spring crop.

heehee.

[VenusRising]

4. It all got dumped on Britain and the EU.

Lots of people have died, and there has been record snowfall. The pictures all look like the frozen arctic tundra.

[The Doctor.]

5. That's the very frightening possibility.

The shutting down of the ancient THC will stop the supply of warm air to Europe.

[jimlup]

14. The arctic ice sheet can't hold "winter" in place like it used to...

Climatic shifts are the result.

[appleannie1]

6. We have yearly geese. They are a month early this year. And 'Mama' is getting ready to lay eggs.

[Jennicut]

7. We had roofs collapsing under snow last winter in Connecticut.

This year has had nothing. My kids wanted snow.

[B Calm]

10. I correspond with a 97 yr old women

in Northern Minnesota. She lives just outside of International Falls up in the far northern part of the state. It's usually the coldest part of the country this time of the year. She wrote that she has never in her life seen such a mild winter.

I drive an 18 wheeler in Western Michigan and along the Lake Michigan shoreline everyday. I myself have never seen a winter like this one and trust me I'm not complaining!

Will winter eventually come and last until June or July?

[Golden Raisin]

11. Crocuses have been up & visible

(flowers, not just green portions) for weeks. That's a first for January/February on the Upper West Side Manhattan. No frigid cold so far this Winter and negligble snow. I suppose we could still get walloped in March. But so far unbelievably mild.

[jimlup]

12. I've been following climate science as closely as I can for awhile now

And my understanding is that the primary "cause" for what we are experiencing this winter is changes in the arctic ice sheet. And these changes are also the reason eastern Europe is experiencing an unusually cold spell.

So yes - it is CO2 greenhouse warming. AGW becomes undeniable yet the Reptilians are still denying it as loudly as ever. Just yesterday I dude on a mainstream website I debate was making the "you don't understand the difference between weather and climate" argument. It was funny primarily because he has demonstrated convincingly that he absolutely does not and has demonstrated this many times.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. I am enjoying it

and taking it day by day because we can still get slammed any time through about mid-April.

After 2 record-smashing winters in a row here in Philly, we needed the damn break!!!!

[madokie]

15. The last two winters here were just like this one, nice

then all hell broke loose come February and March of those two years. Last February we got two snows a week apart that left us with two feet of snow and ice and a shit pot of electric lines on the ground. The winter before was only freezing rain with the electric lines on the ground then too.

We have Jonquils ready to burst open in all their yellow glory any day now

[Rosa Luxemburg]

16. EL Nina?

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/la-nina-story.html

We want a 'snow day' (all teachers and students like their snow days!)

[LiberalEsto]

17. I was weeding this afternoon.

It was close to 60 degrees and felt like spring.
There are buds on some of our daffodils too.

I was pulling up clumps of hairy bittercress, which has been blooming all winter.
Once it goes to seed, the seeds burst out all over the place and create dozens upon dozens of new plants.

I'm not sure if we're going to get snow in Montgomery County, MD. On a day like today, winter seems like fiction. The forecast says chance of snow in the morning, high of 37 degrees. Back to reality.