There is almost no snow anywhere in America

A white winter wonderland is nothing but a dream for most Americans in the Lower 48, where snow cover is at its lowest point ever for November, modern records indicate. "How unusual is this?" the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration writes. "National snow analyses have been compiled by NOAA's National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center since 2003 and, during that time, never have the first two weeks of November shown such small amounts of snow."

In NOAA's illustration above, "the map on the left shows average snow cover from 1981 to 2010 for the second week of November. The image on the right shows the current amount of snow cover as of Nov. 14, 2016." Snow only covers the ground in 0.2 percent of the country, and is isolated to the high Sierra Nevada, Rocky, and Cascade mountains. Denver even had an 80-degree day Wednesday, The Washington Post reports.

But despite 2016 likely being the hottest year on record, winter is coming. A snowstorm is developing in the Rockies this week and is expected to sweep the High Plains and into northern Minnesota, with blizzard warnings issued for eastern South Dakota and southwest Minnesota.

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