Apparently, it's going to get bad

It's still summer.

Technically.

Football season has just started as the Broncos pulverize the Colts right now during the premiere of Sunday Night Football. I just mowed the lawn. Lemonade still tastes good, and apple cider slushies just premiered at my favorite farm/orchard. Sure, mega-Halloween stores are beginning to open in abandoned department stores, but they just did.

You see, the key word here is just. 

Autumn won't officially begin for another 16 days, yet tonight, my wife and I discussed the need to purchase a generator for the upcoming winter. We've already discussed how we'll need to stock up on canned goods, peanut butter and crackers. I almost started filling up jugs with water to store in the fridge.

All the apples we get from our CSA fruit and veggie tote each week are going toward apple sauce canning. If this winter is as bad as "they" say it is, we'll need our Vitamin C. The last thing we want is scurvy. We won't be able to drive to the doctor's office to get a prescription to take care of it.

Who are "they" you ask? The brutality of the upcoming winter first caught wind with the Farmers' Almanac. There have been a plentitude of stories thus far, all claiming that this winter will be the same as last winter...if not worse.

Did you hear that?

It's the screams of all the unmade snowmen. It's going to be too cold -- even for them.

Although I don't have an actual copy of the Farmers' Almanac in front of me, the website states that this winter will be colder than normal. Say goodbye to enjoying late-December and January. Don't even bother waking up that first week of February. And while you're at it, you might as well book that family vacation in July, and not June, because the kids aren't going anywhere.

But be careful, the news outlet Empire News posted a story that meteorologists are predicting record-shattering snowfall. The author wrote that the snowfall would begin at the end of September and stick around until June of 2015. Some places, the article stated, could get 50 times the snow amounts compared to last year. That is, until you realize there's a disclaimer at the bottom of the website.

News organizations don't usually have disclaimers. Then, I realized the joke was on me. Empire News is a satirical website, but the threat of a terrible winter is still real.

The Farmers' Almanac got it right last year.

Who's to say it won't get it right this year.