As we shiver our way into yet another new year, we optimistically hope it will be a better one than the previous. In 2007 the global warming alarmists were swooning over Al Gore's Nobel Prize, while an equally determined group of climatologists refuted it as more likely a natural climate phenomenon the Earth sees occur periodically, dating back well before man ever existed. Global man-made warming or not, from this layman's standpoint, 2007 was a year of extremes.

We kicked off the 2007 New Year with almost summer-like temperatures, following a Green Christmas. The month remained slightly warmer than usual until near its end, when the mercury dropped like a rock. Then, as though a reminder that we seldom escape true winter weather for very long, nature slapped us with a blizzard-like two feet of white stuff on Valentine's Day. As though it was balancing out for the warmth of January, temperatures remained well below normal right on through March.

When April and the Spring season arrived, we could say goodbye to cold and snow, right? Wrong. Trout fishing had barely got underway when, on April 16, our area was buried with heavy wet snow from an unusual-for-the-season nor'easter that downed trees and power lines. Once we recovered from that, May and June were more typical, with the exception of a freak June flood that claimed four lives and destroyed homes, roads and bridges in Delaware County.