This is shaping up to be a great week to be a Nintendo Wii owner. Today, many people are reporting seeing that familiar blue glow this morning. The glow heralds a message from Nintendo informing the Wii masses that the new Forecast channel is available and will become active once your Wii unit receives a firmware update.

And from Opera comes word that a “trial version” of the Opera 9 browser for the Wii will be available for download from the Wii Shop channel starting this Friday, December 22nd. They even have a short webcomic of the announcement that states that the “full version” of the browser could be expected to drop sometime in the spring. Nintendo Europe also put out a press release about the browser, stating that it would be available for a free download until June 2007 (which we already knew), and that after that date, the browser would be available for 500 Wii points. Nintendo also states that the final version will be available in March 2007.