It seems we are in the midst of a fairly mild winter here in the uk, but the weather is even more strange in parts of america. I have a friend who lives in Rapid City, South Dakota which is located in the famous Black Hills. Normally his gear would be gathering dust with the lakes and rivers ice encrusted, but this year for the first time in 36 years he has lived there the temperature has been in the 40s and 50s fahrenheit so the rivers remain ice-free and he,s been able to fish local rivers and streams using the french nymph techinque to good effect. It,s supposed to drop down to the 20s later this week, but even that,s balmy for that part of the world and January! And any snow they had which wasn,t a lot has melted except for that at high altitudes! Even the snow on lakes in eastern South Dakota have been melting when usually they,d be 18 inches thick with ice!

__________________
The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

It has been very variable here in SW Wyoming. We had it down in the -20s at the end of December and now last week it hit 20. As we are at 6600 feet I was expecting it to be colder than that. The small river near me is now ice free after been totally frozen but the Green River is still a mass of bergs.