If you are 1970's vintage or older, you'll remember, like I do, that weather patterns used to be a whole lot more predictable. Summers were summers, winters were winters, and never the twain did meet. Each stuck to a clearly defined and allocated time frame that was universally recognised and worked around. We knew what to do, and when to do it - working with seasons that had come and gone for millenia.

Not anymore.

Both the UK and the U.S. list 2006 as being the temperature record-breaker for their respective countries since they began keeping records, and, barely into 2007, this year is off to a very good head-start - showing a clear determination to one-up all previous years once more. This is getting to be a habit...

Swimmers are enjoying winter dips in the Mediterranean, ski resorts from Canada to France have laid off workers and shops are axing prices of thick coats at the start of what scientists say be the warmest year on record.

With unusually high temperatures, dazed bears in Moscow zoo have just dropped off for winter hibernation after months of insomnia while peacocks in a Bulgarian zoo have laid eggs, reckoning spring has long since arrived.

Warmth has brought peach, plum and apricot blossoms months early in Italy and snow drop flowers are blooming in Chicago. Some farmers worry that sprouting crops are vulnerable to frost.

"We are in a period of extreme events," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, noting five months of floods in east Africa and melting Alpine glaciers.

Global warming, stoked by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, and an El Nino warming of the Pacific Ocean are widely blamed by scientists for mild weather that contributed to push below $53 a barrel on Thursday, a new 19-month low.

Steiner said governments should cut greenhouse gases and work out how to adapt to more heat -- the 10 warmest years since records began 150 years ago have been since 1994.

"Climate change, whether this is linked to greenhouse gases or not, is real and it's getting more extreme," he told Reuters....

In Europe, workers have been laid off in ski resorts from France to Norway. Canada's Blue Mountain resort in Ontario closed twice this season and temporarily laid off 1,000 workers....

And Britain's Meteorological Office has projected that 2007 will be the warmest worldwide on record, because of global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon in the Pacific. - Reuters

The observations of Dr. Nigel Taylor, the curator of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London, causes him to describe winter this year as a no-show.

Dr Nigel Taylor, the curator at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, said: "The Crocus tomassinianus was in flower on New Year's Day, which is a record. This is nine days earlier than any on our records, which go back to the 1950s. We've also got Narcissus February Gold that's already five inches through the ground, which we shouldn't really be seeing for another month.

"Quite a number of plants haven't gone to sleep as they usually do. I would describe it as a case of 'no winter'."

Flowers are still in bloom that winter frost would normally have killed. Oak trees are still in leaf and rhododendrons in bloom. Frogspawn has also come early in some parts of the country, according to the Woodland Trust, whose Springwatch campaign collects first sightings of spring.

Dr Kate Lewthwaite of the Woodland Trust said: "We've got dragonflies hovering over our ponds, bumble bees still buzzing and looking for pollen, crab apples still on trees ... It's as if winter never started." - The Independent

The last few months have seen a dizzying array of weather patterns worldwide. Although global warming provides an overall warming trend, the complex interactions of atmospheric and ocean currents turn our sudden increase in overall temperature into an erratic and frenzied weather response, as the world flexes and strains under these new conditions.

In South Africa, hailstones the size of tennis balls pounded the Eastern Cape province, killing small livestock, in the summer month of December, the national weather service said. - ibid.

Similarly, firefighters near Melbourne, Australia were taken by surprise in December, as their fire-fighting efforts were aided with a similar phenomenon - snow and hailstones in summer. The last time snow fell in Melbourne was in 1986 - but that was at least a little more understandable, since it was the winter month of July!

December is the middle of summer for Australia and average temperatures usually range between 23-25 degrees. Christmas in Australia usually means barbeque in the sunshine or a swarmy family day by the beach. Christmas day this year was wintry with rain all day, hail, sleet and even snow in the mountains.

Driveways and cars along the eastern suburbs were covered in white hail. Snow was last recorded in Melbourne CBD in the winter month of July 25, 1986. Even then (despite being a winter month), the snow turned to slush before it hit the ground. In the middle of summer on Christmas day this year, the hail stayed frozen on driveways, roofs and cars for longer, forming a layer of what looked like snow. Mountain peaks all across Victoria, southern NSW and Tasmania were also capped in snow.

It was a bizarre sight for the middle of summer. Especially since just 4 days ago, on December 21st, Melbourne was a sweltering 37 degrees. On December 10, temperatures in Melbourne topped 42.1 degrees Celsius, making it the hottest December day in 53 years. The sudden look and feel of winter again was a peculiar sensation....

There is no doubt that the weather is Australia is getting more extreme. 2006 broke many previously held weather records.

September, the first month of Spring (not even Summer), saw temperatures top 30 degrees. September 18 went on record as the earliest spring day to top 30 degrees since records began. It is also the warmest September month on record and the driest Spring month in 39 years.

October was recorded as a month of extremes. Not only did the month bring the highest temperature on record, it also recorded the lowest temperature on record. October 12 reached 38 degrees, making it the earliest day on record in October to surpass the 35 degree mark. It also recorded the coldest October day on the 28th.

November recorded the coldest November day (November 15th) in Melbourne for 40 years.

December brought not only the hottest December day in 53 days (on December 10th), it also brought the warmest December night in 45 years, with temperatures falling to only 27 degrees and was 30 degrees at 6am the following morning. And Christmas brought the coldest Christmas day on record.

Melbourne’s unpredictable “Four Seasons in a Day” weather pattern is set to get even more erratic. - Bella Online

We're only halfway into January, but:

Winter this year has been mild across much of the United States, with the notable exception of Colorado, which has seen several heavy snowfalls and at least one major avalanche that buried three lanes of a major highway. - Reuters

At the beginning of January, Colorado was hit by the second massive snowstorm in two weeks. After parts of the state were buried by a two-foot storm in late December, a second storm, dropping up to three feet in the southern part of the state, paralyzed much of Colorado at the beginning of the year more . . . In Brazil, intense rains triggered flooding and mudslides which left 50 people dead . . . A second wave of violent rain swept through Malaysia in mid-January, burying one town under nine feet of water and driving about 90,000 people from their homes. . . A severe ice storm swept through the midwestern US, coating trees, toppling power lines and leaving more than 100,000 homes without electricity. . . - The Heat is Online

The World Meteorological Organisation, that collects weather data from 185 countries, confirms this unstable trend:

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples. - Commondreams.org

This is not new news - way back in 1999 and beyond we've been told to expect extremes.

As the heat is turned up, the social and economic knock-on effects of these weather extremes will bring extreme reactions from the societies most effected by them. Rather than the century of peace people hoped for, expect a very rough ride.

Further Reading:

• Significant Climate Anomolies and Events in 2006 (GIF Image Reference Map)
• National Geographic