2007 weather had rough spots, but cold, heat not among them

If it seems like it's been a long winter, it'll probably be wise to remember that winter is only a couple of weeks old.

We'll be glad when the ice and ugly, gray snow melts away -- and hope it does before the next round of snow arrives, which it might do tonight. If it does, however, perhaps the gray snow will get a new coat of white.

If you're hoping for good weather this year, you won't do much better than we enjoyed last year.

The McCook Municipal Airport recorded 24.02 inches of precipitation for the year, 2.19 inches above the normal of 21.83. We'd take that again this year, and some more, as it will take a lot of above-normal years for us to recover from the drought.

We had four record high temperatures and two record ties for the year, but no record lows or low record ties.

The highest was 102 degrees on Aug. 14 by our records, or 103 on Aug. 15 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Because our records show 93 on Aug. 15, we're inclined to think someone recorded the wrong date, or accidentally recorded a high temperature 10 degrees higher than actual.

The lowest temperature for 2007, according to NOAA, was 7 below zero of Feb. 16, the most rain was 4.02 on April 23, and January was the snowiest month.

That annual high of 103, and low of minus 7 seem pretty mild for longtime residents who remember temperatures up to 114 and temperatures 20 or 30 below.

Yes, we had bad weather; summertime tornadoes and the ice storm of a year ago come to mind, and should not be overlooked.

But as far as overall climate, we can only hope that 2008 treats us as kindly.