WASHINGTON – Brrrrr.

Well, not really, not if you’re a fan of government statistics.

It may be cold, and there may be snow just about everywhere around Bangor, but the National Weather Service says there’s nothing really remarkable about Maine weather this year. Not in terms of snowfall since last December, not in terms of general precipitation and not in terms of temperature change.

Maine is just, well, average in a very unaverage year for most of the United States. Never mind that the temperatures are not expected to clear freezing any time for the rest of the year, Weather.com says.

Statistics from the Weather Service released Tuesday show that the nation was in upheaval this year, with a drought spreading through the South and wildfires ravaging the West. Other places were wetter than normal, others more humid. Maine was average, pick your category.

The long-term prediction for some areas of the United States showed continued drought in the South and extraordinary moisture in other areas, including upstate New York and Vermont.

But Maine? Nothing exciting.

Precipitation totals? Again, right in the middle. Midwestern and some mid-Atlantic and New England states were dripping, the South was tepid. Maine – about average.

“After beginning with record winter warmth, the year 2000 is ending with colder than normal temperatures across much of the nation,” the Weather Service said.

“Although the final temperature for the year will depend on conditions during the remaining two weeks of December, the average annual U.S. temperature in 2000 is projected to be between 54.1 degrees and 54.2 degrees, the seventh to 12th warmest year on record” since statistics were first kept in 1894.

Statistics by state won’t be released until sometime in January.

And there is global warming in the United States.

Although lower-than-normal temperatures have affected much of the United States recently, the trend to higher temperatures, which began more than a century ago, continues.

U.S. temperatures have risen at a rate of 0.9 degrees F per century over the past 100 years. Within the past 25 years, U.S. temperatures increased at a rate of 1.6 degrees F per quarter-century.