A very, very interesting article. If Joe is right, and he has been right a great deal lately, this augurs for higher demand for natural gas and for more development. The full article is here.

Excerpts below:

This winter is on track to become the coldest for the nation as a whole since the 1980s or possibly even the late 1910s. According to AccuWeather.com Chief Long Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi, three or four out of the next five winters could be just as cold, if not colder.

He is worried that next winter, for example, will be colder than this one.

Bastardi adds that with the U.S. in the middle of one of its worst recessions in its history and the price of oil in question, he is extremely concerned about the prospect for more persistent cold weather in the coming years putting increased financial hardship on Americans.

"Cold is a lot worse than warm," Bastardi said, "and that's why your energy bill goes up during the winter time: because of the fact that it takes a lot to heat a house."

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(Video can be viewed here.)

Bastardi: Shift to Colder Climate Predicted Next 20-30 Years

Bastardi thinks that not only will the next few winters be colder than normal for much of the U.S., but that the long-term climate will turn colder over the next 20 to 30 years.

"What's interesting about what we're seeing here is that [the current La Niña] is starting so cold," said Bastardi, "and it's coinciding with bigger things that are pushing the overall weather patterns and climate in the Northern Hemisphere and, in fact, globally over the next 20 to 30 years that we have not really dealt with, nor can we really quantify."

"That ties into a lot of this arguing over climate change," he added.

Bastardi has pointed out that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which is a pattern of Pacific climate variability that shifts phases usually about every 20 to 30 years, has shifted into a "cold" or "negative" phase.

Over the past 30 years or so, according to Bastardi, the PDO has been "warm" or "positive."

This change to a cold PDO over the next 20 to 30 years, he says, will cause La Niñas to be stronger and longer than El Niños. Bastardi adds that when El Niños do kick in, if they try to come on strong like they did last year, they will get "beaten back" pretty quickly.

"When you have a cold PDO and lots of La Niñas, when El Niños do come on, you generally tend to have cold, snowy weather patterns across the U.S.," Bastardi said. "That's what we saw in the 1960s and 1970s."