[zjrog]

In talking with people who have lived here in my town a lot longer than I have, they were thinking that our weather pattern this year was much like the weather patterns of 25 years ago, when Utah was hit with a very wet summer and followed with record snowfall the following winter. I personally am a very poor judge of weather patterns, as I have moved around a great deal over the last 30 years.

I also seem to recall that overall polar bear populations are on the rise, and the classic photo of a polar bear "stranded" on a piece of ice is NOT typical of the entire population. Perhaps small regions have declining polar bear populations though.