Well, not exactly cancelled. But I just got off the phone with Ken Reeves, AccuWeather's senior meteorologist and director of forecasting operations, and he says a strong La Nina pattern in the Pacific this winter will keep us plenty warm and dry for most of the season.

This is pretty much what other prognosticators have been saying for months. A La Nina winter means mild winter temperatures and scant snow for Maryland.

Whatever cold weather and snow we may get, Reeves said, is likely to come at us early - in late November or December, and then again late in February or March. But the normally coldest and snowiest weeks of the year - in January and most of February - will be mild.

"It looks like there's going to be a noticeable turn back to a milder pattern as we move through December," he said. "For the heart of the season, we'll find there isn't a lot in the way of snowfall or cold air."

Of course, that's good news for your wallet. We'll all burn less fuel to heat our homes. And that will allow refineries to crank out more gasoline, boosting supplies and keeping prices at the pumps somewhere south of crippling. We hope.

It's also good news for your back. Less shoveling.

The bad news is that precipitation - not just snow - will be scant, too. If you're looking for a big recharge for the reservoirs and the wells this winter, Reeves is not encouraging.

"It doesn't look like it's coming," he said. "There are signs you might break out of it (the drought) faster as you head into spring," which he anticipates may be cooler and stormier. But "if you're looking for 120 percent or 150 percent (of normal rainfall this winter) it's not coming."

The forecast for mild, dry and relatively snow-free weather this winter also includes most of the eastern United States, Reeves said. The Deep South won't get any drought relief either. But the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies and perhaps even the northern Plains states should brace for cold weather and, especially in the Northwest - lots of snow.

He said the combination of a strong La Nina this winter  - "maybe even a top-5 La Nina" - and multidecadal warm cycle underway since 1995 in the Atlantic Ocean, is what's driving nation's winter forecast this year.

The closest analog he's found for the global conditions that will influence this winter in the US were the conditions that prevailed during the winter of 1949-1950. That January averaged 8 to 12 degrees warmer than the long-term averages in the East, he said.  In the Pacific Northwest, Seattle averaged 13 degrees below the average. And, he noted, "they had just shy of five feet of snow, the snowiest ever there in Seattle."

"We are looking for temperatures in Baltimore to be 2 to 4 degrees above normal (in January)," he said. The mild forecast "doesn't mean it can't snow," he cautioned. "It just means I wouldn't anticipate a prolonged period" of cold, wintry weather. "It's very possible that in the December through February time period, 75 percent of the days would be above normal."

I asked Reeves if farmers and residents with water wells can look forward to a recharge AFTER the winter is over and La Nina begins to wane. On that he was a tad more hopeful.

"I do believe we will see La Nina wane a bit after peaking, probably in the early part of 2008 ... and head closer to more neutral signals ... by April or June," he said. He had no precipitation predictions for the spring or summer. But he did say the decline of La Nina would allow a stormier weather pattern to develop for the Northeast.

For the record, Reeve's analog year - the winter of 1949-1950 - produced less than an inch of snow for Baltimore - 0.7 inch to be precise, the least snow ever recorded for a season here.  Temperatures for that winter (Dec.-Feb.) averaged  42 degrees, or more than 7 degrees above normal. January averaged 46.9 degrees, or more than 16 degrees above the long-term average. December and February were mild, too, but by just 2 to 5 degrees.

Here's AccuWeather's full report on the coming winter.