Global Warming??

For snow-weary residents of the Midwest and New England, spring can't come soon enough. Locations such as Madison, Wis., and Concord, N.H., endured their snowiest winter since records began, and parts of the western USA also saw a much snowier-than-average winter, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. The U.S. winter of 2007-08 — which meteorologists classify as the months of December, January and February — will go down as the coldest since the winter of 2000-01, with a national average temperature of 33.2 degrees, NOAA reported Thursday. However, it's the record snowfall that may be the most memorable element of this winter.

• JJ Commentary: Short-term weather is hard to predict. Long-term forecasts (such as global warming) are nigh impossible.