Welcome to April! The next month looks like it'll be interesting, with warmer-than-average temperatures for much of the country, except the Northeast, where winter clings like tangy marinara to a plate of cold pasta. Sorry. This is no joke, either—we don't play those games. Nature really does just hate you.

As expected, this was the warmest winter on record in five western states—California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Washington. The National Climatic Data Center's analysis jibes nicely with The Vane's findings that showed a major split between above-average in the West and below-average in the East.

One of the biggest (and most welcome) weather stories today is that a warm-up is slated to descend over the United States during the next two weeks. The maps we use to show the possibility of above-average temperatures are being misread by much of the public, and that's a problem.

People are wildly sharing the news that the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a brutally cold and snowy winter this year. Did you know that they also predicted a brutally hot summer across most of the country this year? Hope you didn't bake to death in the 70-degree, low humidity weather.

For those of us who live along the East Coast, this has been a pretty nice summer. With constant shots of cool air and low humidity filtering in from the north (thanks, Canucks!), temperatures are staying right around normal. The West, on the other hand, is baking. How does this summer compare to summers past?

The New York Post wrote an article the other day exclaiming that this summer is one of the mildest summers on record in New York City. Sure it is! If we extend the meaning of "on the record" to include that time when the earth was covered in lava.

One "polar vortex" after the other, it seems like this summer is really just an extension of spring. The cool temps are causing people who live east of the Rockies to wonder if 2014 will go down as the year without a summer. As we enter the waning days of July, we can look back and see if it's true.

While people along and east of the Rockies seem to have thunderstorms almost every other day this time of year, folks along the West Coast never see our level of exciting weather. Putting aside the ongoing drought, why doesn't the West Coast ever seem to see thunderstorms?

You'd never know it watching U.S. news, but the world's weather doesn't revolve around I-95. "Incredibly, the eastern U.S. is the only region of the world that has been colder than normal each of the first three months this calendar year," writes Jason Samenow of the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang.