Ebbie, down here in Minnesota, we are experiencing the effect of Alaska not yet having it's normal weather, and I like it just fine, thank you very much! Arctic air dipped down on us this week for the first time all season, and they are now predicting highs in the mid-30s all next week. We had our third mildest winter on record last year (we've actually been having unusually mild winters alternating with unusually heavy snow winters for the better part of the last 15 years. We used to joke about wanting global warming here, but I'm increasingly coming to believe it's already upon us, and will only continue to worsen. Our summers have been really hot too, and we've had a few too many "100 year" floods in the area. Normally our worst flooding would come in the spring, and we haven't had much of that at all in the last decade. But we have had flooding from excessive rains in the summer. Of course, the flooding becomes more noticeable because of all the dumbass places people keep building (such as along scenic rivers, creeks, lakes, etc) so after awhile you start to say to yourself, do I want my tax dollars to go to bail out people living in half million dollar homes on the banks of a river that floods regularly?