Oh the Weather Outside is ... Balmy?
Three articles I found today via Yahoo News:
1. Odd winter, to put it mildly
2. Parts of U.S. experience warm winter
3. Scientists say 2007 may be the warmest yet

From 1.
December was the warmest on Long Island since records began being kept in 1949, according to the National Weather Service. On average, the temperature was 41 degrees last month, a full 5 degrees higher than normal. It was also the first time since 1877 that it didn't snow in December in Central Park. That comes on the heels of Long Island's warmest ever November, when temperatures averaged 48 degrees, the weather service said.

From 3.
The reason for the forecast is mostly due to El Nino, a cyclical warming trend now under way in the Pacific Ocean. The event occurs irregularly — the last one happened in 2002 — and typically leads to increased temperatures worldwide.

While this year's El Nino is not as strong as it was in 1997 and 1998, its combination with the steady increase of temperatures due to global warming from human activity may be enough to break the Earth's temperature record, said Phil Jones, the director of the Climatic Research unit at the University of East Anglia.

"Because of the warming due to greenhouse gases, even a moderate warming event is enough to push the global temperatures over the top," he said.

"El Nino is an independent variable," he said. "But the underlying trends in the warming of the Earth is almost certainly due to the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

Silly scientists. Don't they know that renowned climatologist..., er, failed businessman turned Senator, Jim Inhofe, has told us that global warming isn't real?