weather woes

As most of you have probably noticed by now, I am really fond of winter and snow, and have been unhappy with the really mild winters we have been having because they aren't cold enough. Because I thought I might just be imagining it, I started keeping a record of how many days in a row the weather was either above zero C, below zero C, or saw both sides of zero in the same day. In my opinion, winter should be a several month long period of time wherein the temperatures never rise above freezing. By that definition we haven't had winter since I started keeping records. I just checked my records--the longest period we have had where it didn't warm up above freezing was 16 days in January. In contrast, we had 101 days in a row this summer that stayed above freezing (the last day of which was 1 September). So far our record number of days in a row wherein it was both above and below freezing each day was 13 days.

I was really hoping that this winter would be better--that once it got down to decent winter temperatures it would stay there. But so far it isn't looking good. We just had three beautiful cold days, but it has warmed up, and they say it will rain tomorrow. We don't have much snow yet--only a handful of cm covering the ground--too much rain will wash it away, and then it will be dark again. I hope it doesn't get that bad...