I have also heard that we are expected to have a warmer than usual winter in the upper plains and Great Lakes. We deserve it after the last two winters.

We should also note that our exceptionally cool Spring (albeit a very early last frost) and the coldest Summer on record usually pan out as a warmer than usual Winter. Maybe like 1982 where I had to cut the lawn the on Dec. 23rd because we had Christmas guests expected.

BTW, last year I mowed on December 2nd or 3rd for the last time; usually, it is in mid-November here in Detroit Area.

I love the logic of cool summer warm winter but I think the temp trend is more downward than anything,someone will have a wicked winter this year,howabout the west and warm this side of the rockies? I think a strong El nino and colder than normal winter is going to mean big snows or at least a lot of moisture somewhere.
Here in Iowa since we went into this low sunspot activity in Dec 2008,our last month with above normal highs was Nov 2007,since then only March has had above normal high temps. My feeling is we are in for a wild/wet long cold winter here in the midwest.My hope is it's sunny mild and dry Nov-March.We'll see.

The almanac predicted a colder than normal winter last season (no sunspots, acorns, etc) and that proved to be right, especially here in Florida. It has been a cooler than normal summer here, and there is an El Nino. I would think it would be milder this next winter but I still think sunspots have a lot to do with it. No sunspots = cooler. Anyone check the almanac? lol

Palmmandan -- if you want to have a specific prognostic forecast for SE Michigan, check out the National Weather Service Detroit-Pontiac forecast office website around the first week or so of September. They have a staff meterologist named Bill Deedler who always writes a fairly lengthy and detailed seasonal forecast for the upcoming season. I've always found them to be remarkably accurate. His summer forecast, put out in late May, said that it would be cool and dry, cooler in the first half of the summer than in the second, which is exactly what's happened.

Hope its mild - there doesn't seem to be a pattern to what indicators procede good and bad winters here in NYC. For me - bad means prolonged below normal cold and mild is when the temps do not dip below teens with no record-cold air fronts. One year in the mid 1990s it did not go below 20* and just warmed up like winter did not really happe. I thought - wow palms could have did well.

Last years Almanac had the story about the sunspots and the 11 year cool cycle,I find their daily forecast(month by month)to be very funny.Funny as in,they can't forecast the next ten days very well unless it's a set pattern but the Almanac forecast week by week,they claim to be accurate,they are silly.I have seen forecast like-Jan 10-16 record cold sunny be-cloudy and mild and then they say they are accurate! This goes on like this all winter,I mean sometimes they are right but so is a stopped clock,twice a day!