I hope you’re ready. It won’t be too many weeks before we get to celebrate the official first day of winter on Dec. 21. From the looks of things outside the window here at History Central, however, it looks pretty wintry already.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, this winter will be mild and dry in our area of the country. According to the almanac, our coldest early winter weather should show up in mid to late December, early and late January, and early February.

While the Almanac also suggests lower than average precipitation this winter, again, from the looks of things since last Saturday, we may at least have a snowy early December, although a white Christmas is probably iffy.

In fact, the weather around these parts has moderated quite a bit during the last several decades. Many of us old-timers remember the blizzards of 1952 and 1967. The winter of 1978-79 was a real corker, too.

Through the history of the U.S., there have been a lot of other truly monumental snowstorms. Back in colonial times, Illinois was populated mostly by Native Americans. They recalled the huge storm of 1763 that dropped up to 15 feet of snow on what was then the Illinois Country. Among other things, it reportedly helped lead to the extinction of Illinois’ bison herd.

But most of the big storms recorded during that early era are ones that hit the East Coast because that’s where the people were. One of the worst of those colonial storms was actually a group of four huge storms that hit New England from Feb. 27 through March 7, 1717.

The worst of the lot, from March 3-4, left 30 to 40 inches of snow on the ground in a strip from New Haven, Connecticut, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After the great storm ended on March 7, New England snow depths averaged 5 feet on level ground.

As the 18th Century drew to a close, another huge blizzard struck the East Coast, burying several states from northern New Jersey to Maine. The storm lasted from Nov. 17 to 21 in 1798. On the fourth day of the storm, gale winds struck, drifting the 35-inch snowfall.

The Great Snowstorm of 1831 was remembered with awe for generations. Beginning on Jan. 13, 1831, the storm didn’t blow itself out until Jan. 16. The shear extent of the storm was staggering. Snow fell from central Georgia to southern Ohio and east to southern New Hampshire.

During 40 continuous hours, the storm dumped huge amounts of snow. The heaviest snow was recorded as falling in a band from central Pennsylvania east to Cape Cod to a depth of 35 inches.

Out here on the Illinois prairie, the winter of 1830-31 was forever after known as the Winter of the Deep Snow. Snow had already fallen by the time the January blizzard hit and dumped a few more feet on the ground.

Then the temperatures soared into the 60s melting the snow surface, before another dose of polar temperatures and more snow fell on the ice-covered snow pack.

The effect of the storm on the region’s Native People may have led to the Black Hawk War of 1832.

But, bad as it was, the Great Snowstorm of 1831 didn’t hold a candle to the ferocity of the Great Cold Storm of Jan. 18-19, 1857 back east. Temperatures dropped steeply as gale force winds drove snow before it like bullets.

The storm ravaged a huge area from North Carolina to Maine, killing many and disrupting rail traffic all through the area. Temperatures, even in the southern portions of the country hit by the storm, dropped below zero, causing suffering and death by the poor in their flimsy and often unheated homes.

In southeastern Massachusetts, several churches and other buildings were destroyed by the wind and the ruins were buried under huge drifts of fine, ice-like snow. Virginia still considers this storm to be the worst in the state’s history.

In 1888, though, the granddaddy of all blizzards – actually two storms – hit the U.S. The first storm, lasting from Jan. 11-13, 1888, struck the Great Plains with unprecedented fury, burying the Great Plains from Montana east to Minnesota, and south to Texas.

The great blizzard, depicted in the TV mini-series “Centennial,” killed tens of thousands of cattle on western ranches, destroying many of them.

If that wasn’t bad enough, on March 11-14 of the same year, the legendary “Blizzard of ’88” struck the Northeast from western Maryland to central New England.

The blizzard buried whole communities under 40-60 inches of snow, whipped into gigantic drifts by winds 50-mile-an-hour winds at near-zero temperatures.

Downtown New York City was buried, commerce grinding to a complete halt. Deaths due to the storm are estimated at from 100 to 400 persons.

During the Gay ’90s, Mother Nature apparently wasn’t in much of a gay old mood, a storm on Feb. 14-15, 1895, dumping huge amounts of snow throughout the normally sunny south.

Six inches fell at Brownsville, Tex.; 16 inches at Galveston; 22 at Houston; 24 in southwest Louisiana; and nine in normally sultry New Orleans.

Just four years later, the Great Eastern Blizzard dropped snow from coastal Georgia to central New Hampshire. From northern Virginia to the Hudson River Valley, an average of 30-44 inches of snow falling, only to be drifted by hurricane-force winds.

During the 20th century, there were a lot of bad storms, but the one that really stands out is the Armistice Day Storm of 1940.

On Nov. 11, heavy winds and snow hit Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the waters of Lake Michigan. Winds were clocked at hurricane speeds during the storm as temperatures dropped to -21 degrees F. At least 154 people died as a result of the storm, 69 of them on ships that sank on Lake Michigan.

Granted, it is a lot easier to cope with these warmer global climate change winters. But on the other hand, it sure would be nice to have a white Christmas once in a while, don’t you think?

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