Winds in the East!

I went for an early morning walk on Monday along a trail near where I live. Four deer pranced in the shadows. A rabbit and squirrel scampered in the dew, foraging for food. Pockets of fog rose up above the river.

An idyllic scene.

Or so it would seem. But, it suggested to me that the upcoming winter will be cold and snowy. I’m thinking it might be one of the harshest winters we’ve had in quite some time.

My Mary Poppins moment

Oh I know Autumn doesn’t come in the Northern Hemisphere for another two weeks. And yes, my meteorology skills are spotty at best. There was the broadcast journalism/meteorology course I had in college. I’ve been told that there’s an old VHS tape of that experience lying around somewhere. Trust me when I say that no one needs to see that. NBC’s Today’s Meteorologist Al Roker or The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore, I am not.

I have nothing on the folks who forecast the weather for a living, but I’m 100% sure of my prediction.

Here’s why. I’m basing my decision on the blast of arctic air that hit me when I got out of my car to start my walk. It was like I had stepped into a walk-in freezer. I held my arms tight to my chest and wished I had worn more than a t-shirt and shorts. The temperature had dipped into the low 50s (fahrenheit) overnight and the famous line from Mary Poppins kept repeating in my head.

“Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin. Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, But I feel what’s to happen all happened before.”

If I had a little gig to my step, ala Dick Van Dyke singing Chim Chim Cher-ee, it was to get the heat moving throughout my body. This is September? How is February going to be?

Mark it down

Oh, by the end of my walk I was sweating and the temperature later in the day rose to 70, but I felt the snow and ice all around me. Where sun glazed over the pasture and seeped between the trees, I saw steep snow banks. Where the river rushed past me, I saw cold ice. To top off my visions of the coming winter, I noticed that both my knee and elbow felt stiff. I rubbed the area around my knee but the stiffness wouldn’t go away. It took me two miles into my walk before I felt it loosen up.

No, no, I don’t have a lot of support for my prediction. The Old Farmer’s Almanac has released its 2025-2026 winter outlook and is calling for a “mild winter” with lower precipitation levels and extended dry stretches for much of North America. The almanac is forecasting snow to be below normal with the snowiest periods in late December, early January, and late February.

Bah-humbug to old MacDonald and his farm.

The Snow Miser will be happy

Before forecasters go out on much of a limb, many are waiting to see how much influence La Nina, the cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific, is going to have on weather patterns this year.

They expect some influence, but how much is still to be determined. It’s like they’re waiting to see who wins the grudge match between the Snow Miser or the Heat Miser. To me, it’s neither here nor there. I’m trusting my gut. And my knee. We’re talking back to back to back storms! Trust my intuition. And my knee.

And yes, enjoy this last bit of summer.