A Nice February Or an Ice February?

Back in early December,  I wrote how AccuWeather.com predicted one or two possible ice storms of major significance in my area for January, either one hitting in the middle or late period of the month.  Well, it's not going to happen.  The rest of this week is supposed to dry, and next week is going to be dry and mild (except for possible rain on Sunday). And right now, no one sees any chance of such a thing happening in the last week of the month, either.

But there's still February . . .

Right now, AccuWeather.com is predicting a mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow - but mostly the former two - over a four-day period around the time of Ash Wednesday, February 18, meaning that if this forecast holds, I'll have to give up electricity for Lent.  I know, I know, the third week of February is as far from today as today was from early December - about five weeks - and five-week forecasts are even more ludicrously inaccurate than five-day forecasts (as early December's five-week forecast for my area proved), yet AccuWeather indulges in them for no apparent reason except to maybe scare weather-weary folks like me.  And so I should take all of this with a grain of salt.  Nevertheless, I feel I'd best prepare for the absolute worst by getting more than just a grain of salt - maybe 75 pounds of it in rock-pellet form - even if AccuWeather.com is full of crap.  But to me, it's the law of averages that matters.  Sooner or later, AccuWeather's predictions of a major ice storm, the sort I haven't seen in a long time, have to come true.  Even if that forecast is five weeks out.  Needless to say, I hope AccuWeather is wrong about mid-February, and all we get is a lot snow, but the mere possibility of an ice storm is enough to make me worry.  Add in a little wind, and the power lines won't be able to stand up to ice as well as Barrelhead root beer (hey, do they still make that?).

This year, the 28 days of February, normally spread out over five calendar weeks, get neatly compacted into four calendar weeks.  Hopefully that will make an already short (and meteorologically brutal) month feel even shorter.