When he moved to Rangeley 20 years ago, Rick Godaire remembers it was below zero for nearly all of December.

This year it hasn’t been below zero once, said Godaire, the town’s parks and recreation director

The lakes aren’t frozen. There’s only a few inches of snow on the ground, if that.

And Godaire, along with other people involved in planning Rangeley’s annual Snodeo festival, is getting mighty worried.

“It has never been canceled,” he said Thursday, “even with four inches of rain one year.”

The 2007 Snodeo is set to start Jan. 18, so there’s still time.

But things are looking grim. “We haven’t had a night below zero, and we’re talking almost January 1st.”

Aside from nighttime parties and indoor activities, nearly everything that makes Snodeo special is nigh-on impossible at the moment.

“You have a radar run on the lake. If there’s no ice, you can’t have the radar run,” Godaire said. “There’s a parade. Usually we go to our snow dump and we line Main Street so there’s snow on the road for the parade. We don’t have any place to get any snow right now,” he said.

“We have fireworks on the ice,” he added. Again, no ice.

“It’s out of your control, so you have to pray that we get a little cold weather and snow. We’ve still got three weeks.”

For other people in Rangeley, especially those who make their living from the tourist trade, things are looking even more grim.

“Our whole economy and culture here is based on snow,” said Susan Lind, part-owner of Rangeley’s North Country Inn B&B.

“You look out, and the lake is still liquid,” she said. “As far as any reservations, I would say it’s pretty abysmal.”

Right now, the B&B has no Snodeo reservations. Someone called a few days ago asking about snowmobiling, and Lind had to tell them there wasn’t any snow to snowmobile on. It’d be pretty hard to have fun with no snow on the ground. Nordic skiing and snowshoeing are also impossibilities right now.

The only people having fun are on Saddleback, Lind said.

“They’re quite happy,” she said of folks skiing on the mountain. “It’s a lovely mountain and there’s enough snow. They can make it.”

Luckily, Lind said, she’s retired and not as desperate as some. What about the people who rent snowmobiles or run supply stations along the trails, she asked. What about the folks up in Jackman?

“It’s not good. There’s no business at all,” said Gerry White, who owns River’s Edge Sports Shop in Oquossoc. “Two (years) in a row is going to be real tough.”

He – and apparently everybody else in Rangeley – has heard a big storm might be headed into the area on Monday night. “Hopefully we’ll get dumped on,” he said. “We’re praying for snow.

Situated between Jackman and The Forks, Gloria Hewey of Enchanted Outfitters was circumspect. “I’m not in a panic yet,” she said, “because it’s still fairly early. What we need is more cold days like this so that the ice will form. And then, of course, we need snow.”

What are folks up there doing in the balmy weather? “What we’re doing is we’re praying a lot.”

Dave Jones of Jackman Power Sports said business is bad. “Everybody needs to pray for snow, that’s all,” he said.

“We need cold weather as much as we need snow,” Rangeley Lakes Snowmobile Club President Clark Allen said. “We’ll still do it,” he said of Snodeo, even if it’s not snowy. They’ll have the parties. “And we’ll just have to improvise, I guess,” he said.

“I guess you’ve got to look on the bright side,” Susan Lind said. “It should be an interesting winter.”

“But we all have Denver envy,” she added.