The interesting thing that several posters have noted in our threads recently is how our climate extremes began to intensify following the 97-98 global super El Nino temperature spike. The major amount of heat being released from that event on top of the background warming state seems to have tipped the scales to more extremes. For us it was the succession of mild and snowless winters in the late 90's peaking with the 01-02 non winter. Extreme summer heat was also becoming an increasing factor d