The Nation: FORECAST: UNSETTLED WEATHER AHEAD

After carefully studying woolly bear caterpillars, the thickness of fur on squirrels' tails and other natural signs, "Abe Weatherwise" late last year predicted in The Old Farmers'Almanac that the current winter would be a cold one. Jerome Namias, a meteorologist at California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, had made a similar forecast. But even Namias is surprised at the subfreezing temperatures that have prevailed over most of the eastern half of the U.S. Says he: "I was a little too conservative. Our forecast was for the coldest winter in perhaps 20 years, but it...