Of course, Dave's right. Predicting the weather is pretty nearly a crapshoot most of the time.

That said, I have seen indicators that wise, long-time residents of the area tell me point to a rough winter. For example, I have seen a lot of large cones on the conifers, and the mushroom hunting has been incredible this year. Last year wasn't great for mushrooms, and we had a remarkably mild winter. The year before, the mushrooms were thick (not quite like this year, but fairly abundant), and I'm sure a lot of us remember the winter that followed, where at one point we had snow on the ground in the lowlands for about two weeks straight.

We'll see if any of these predictions hold true, but one thing's for sure: we'll get what we get.