No Relief In Sight From Mild Weather

It's not often that golf conflicts with the time I allot to ice fishing.

But that's what happened earlier in the week.

Frankly, this Indiana weather nonsense is really starting to bum me out.

There's an old saying that goes something like, "If you don't like the weather in Indiana, stay a day." The point being that Indiana weather is erratic.

But this winter's weather is beyond erratic. It's downright weird.

I remember in October and November thinking - and hearing the same from a lot of other people - that we were really going to pay for all that mild weather when December and January rolled around.

Then December came and went and we still didn't get any really cold weather and everybody was saying, "Look out for January. It's gonna be really bad."

Well, now January is all but gone and they're calling for partly sunny skies and temps well into the 40s through the first of the week.

A week from today is Feb. 1, so it surely doesn't look like January is going to give us any Arctic Clippers.

We usually have half a dozen of those each winter.

I enjoy the stuff that winter brings.

I love to fish through the ice. In fact, I usually fish more during the winter than any other season.

I also like to play pond hockey with a fun bunch of guys from around Syracuse.

I like to go up into Michigan a couple times each winter with the family to do some skiing or snowboarding.

This winter has certainly put a damper on all of that stuff.

You know this has to be just killing the ski/snowboard business.

There has been some decent ice for fishing, but it's all but finished now, and it only came on a few weeks ago. This will be one of the shortest ice-fishing seasons ever.

Looks like the pond hockey season may be over, too.

(You know what I am trying to do here. If I whine enough and make enough bold predictions about how there will be no more cold or snow this winter, the weather will probably prove me wrong, which is exactly what I am hoping for.)

But no.

According to Mike Sabones, meteorologist at the North Webster National Weather Service office, there is no relief in sight from all this warmth.

It seems the freakishly mild weather will continue for a while.

But why? Why!?

The weather people didn't tell us about any El Ni-o or La Ni-a systems this year.

How can this be?

Sabones says that while this year didn't have any Ni-os, it did have something called a North Atlantic Oscillation.

"We are gradually learning more and more about different parts of the weather system that can affect our winters," he said.

A North Atlantic Oscillation is a circulation of air around the northern hemisphere. Sabones said when it's strong, it keeps cold air bottled up in Canada.

"If you look at temperatures today in Canada, they're well below zero. It's just that the cold air can't drop south," he said.

"If it (the oscillation) would relax, cold air would drop down, but that hasn't been happening and there certainly is nothing showing up to indicate that it may happen in the near future.

"It looks like we will continue to see fairly mild conditions for the next few weeks," Sabones said.

But speaking of El Ni-o, Sabones mentioned that there is an El Ni-o episode brewing in the Pacific right now.

He said it is tough to predict how El Ni-os affect the weather in this part of the country.

"The West Coast and the Gulf Coast have the clearest response to an El Ni-o in weather patterns," he said.

Around here, it can actually go either way - warmer or colder, wetter or drier.

But the people at the weather service who do long-range predictions are forecasting warmer than normal conditions for next winter.

I know, I know.

This is good news for your heating bills and good news for contractors who can get a lot more work done.

But darn it, I just miss a good old-fashioned winter.

I remember when I was kid we were virtually assured of a white Christmas. Heck, most of the time we had a white Thanksgiving.

My dad, older brother and I used to go rabbit hunting every Thanksgiving. I remember tracking rabbits in the snow to a brush pile and kicking the brush pile to make them run.

There almost always was snow on the ground.

Even more recently, in 1989, I remember it was really cold in December.

We had just moved into our house. It's an older house that was used mostly in the summer.

It had central heat but no insulation. There were a couple weeks in December when the temperature dipped into the tens of degrees below zero.

I had pipes freezing and the furnace ran continually. It was a true man-against-nature struggle and we won.

The house is insulated and has new siding now. I'm ready for the cold.

But there's no cold. And it sounds like next winter might not be all that cold either.

So what's a guy to do for winter fun?

Work on the golf game, I guess.