Accuweather predicts a rough end to winter

I hope that all of you have been enjoying this very mild winter that we've been having, because if Accuweather's prediction for the remainder of the winter is accurate, it is going to get nasty.

The unseasonably warm winter experienced by much of the country is likely to "turn on a dime," in the words of AccuWeather.com Chief Long-Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi.

Bastardi said that the weather pattern from mid-January through mid-February has a chance to mimic the winters of 1965-66 and 1957-58, each of which ended cold and stormy after a warm start. A worst-case scenario would be if this winter plays out as did the winter of 1977-1978.

And Bastardi doesn't hold back in telling us what the next couple of months could hold for us:

Long-range forecasting expert Bastardi points out that it's too early to say with certainty that the change in the weather pattern will be long-lasting or produce heavy amounts of snow. However, he believes that if the weather pattern reaches its full potential, the dramatic change from warmth to cold could result in "one of the top-five coldest 30-day stretches in the past half century."

If you dread brutally cold and snowy winters, you can take some consolation in the fact that divining long term weather forecasts yields worse odds than Vegas. Just the same, you may want to stock up on hot cocoa.