Click Bait! My Guaranteed 100 Percent Winter Forecast!

The dog days of summer are grinding on here in Vermont, with us experiencing so much more humidity and uncomfortable warmth.  

Which means it's time for the winter forecast!

Everybody and their uncle seems to be issuing forecasts for what kind of winter we will have. I've heard everything from Worst, Coldest, Snowiest Winter Ever!! to "It'll be like Barbados, just warmer."

Click bait, I know. Everybody has such confidence in their winter forecasts, but if you go back and look at them after winter's over, most of them are largely wrong. Especially the ones that predicted extreme winters. You know there will be a few boring days mixed in with the exciting ones in the winter, but the click baiters will have you believe it will be wall to wall extremes.

Whatever.

I have very little confidence in these long range forecasts, so I'll give you the percent chance of what I think will happen. I don't buy many winter forecasts issued in August, but this one will be spot on, I promise:

Chances that it will snow in Vermont this winter: 100%

Chances that some idiot on a snowy, icy morning will zip down the Interstate and full speed on bald tires and cause a crash that creates a traffic jam that makes us all late for work: 100%

Chances that any given Vermonter will complain about snow and cold after complaining about this summer's heat: 80%

Chances that I will be among those who complain about both this summer and the upcoming winter: 100%

Chances that somebody will be disappointed that it snowed at the beginning of the week, while others will be bitter that a thaw set in by the end of the week: 90%

Chances that I will slip and fall on the ice and blame everything but my own clumsiness for the mishap: 85%

Chances that we will whine about snow in March and April even though it snows every March and April: 100%

Chances that somebody who made a winter forecast in advance, got it wrong, but later will claim they got it right: 95%

Chances that a climate change denier will point to the fact that it is snowing. In Vermont! In January! that they will say "see, there's no climate change. It's cold and snowing." 95%

Chances that temperatures, precipitation and general weather conditions will sometimes change dramatically from day to day or week to week, as they always do. 100% - Duh!

Chances that this winter, people will put out equally boneheaded summer predictions for 2019: 99%