What's up with the weather?

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--If you got a new snowmobile for Christmas, you may want to scout for places to run it way up north, and if you got new golf clubs from Santa, then you may want to have them in the bag and ready -- just in case

That's because the new El Nino is starting to flex its muscles.

"The National Weather Service just issued its three-month forecast, and they're saying that, for our area, temperatures will be 30 degrees above normal in January, February and March," Lonnie Spaeth, New Ulm's volunteer weather observer, said Sunday.

Yes, that's not a misprint; they're forecasting 30 degrees above normal for much of the winter.

Spaeth said NWS also is forecasting normal precipitation for the same period.

Does that mean we'll be seeing rain instead of snow?

"It sure looks like it with that many degrees above normal," Spaeth answered.

The good news is that New Ulm's Tourism Committee can start pitching Floridians on spending their winter vacations on the sunny slopes of Hermann Heights Park, site of Hermann Monument. But snowmobilers may want to consider trading in their machines for ATVs because who knows when this El Nino will hit the road.

Absence of snow for Christmas probably should have been our first clue that something was definitely amiss.

According to Spaeth's records, we received a half-inch of snow in October, 1.1 inches in November and, so far, another 1.1 inches in December, a total of 2.7 inches.

During the same period last year we had 4.8 inches. In 2000, during October, November and December, we had 35 inches, of snow, with 20.1 inches in December alone.

Heck, Santa didn't need reindeer this year; he could have driven his SUV.