 The Late Great Coconut Retriever “Dixie” in Colorado Last Winter
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LEWISTON, Maine – Americans, you might want to check on their sweaters and shovels — the Farmers’ Almanac is predicting a cold winter for many of you.
The venerable almanac’s 2010 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says numbing cold will predominate in the country’s midsection, from the Rocky Mountains in the West to the Appalachians in the East.
For most of Minnesota and Wisconsin, the almanac predicts “bitterly cold and dry” weather. In the Dakotas and the Red River Valley region of Minnesota, “very cold and snowy” weather is expected.
Managing Editor Sandi Duncan says it’s going to be an “ice cold sandwich.”
“We feel the middle part of the country’s really going to be cold — very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow,” she said. “On the East and West coasts, it’s going to be a little milder. Not to say it’s going to be a mild short winter, but it’ll be milder compared to the middle of the country.”
How close was it for last years forecast?
Eh, fuck it – I’m in Florida.
Raff–you have a point. How good are the Almanac forecasters (assuming they have forecasters) compared to NOAA forecasters? If their forecasts are in their old almanacs, it should be pretty simple to compare the accuracy of their last 10 years of almanac forecasts, and NOAA’s forecasts, to what actually happened over the last 10 years.
This would be especially interesting on the hurricanes.
Then it’s hurricanes for YOU Sistah!!!
Sister Mary–if you live in Florida, I would think you would be especially interested in the hurricane forecasts.
Farmer’s Almanac is about as accurate as using chicken bones. Of course, that’s not too far off from the “real” weather guys.
#6 research your science. Geezzz..typical.
Weather in Farmer’s Almanacs are largely based on climatology, or the average weather over an extended period of time. As such, they can occasionally get the weather right. However, just as often, they tend to get the weather wrong.
It can be trusted on things that are much more predictable, such as tides, sunrise/sunset, and other highly predictable stats.
A lot just get it for the the usefulness of it’s stories and recipes.
Traditionally the Farmers Almanac has been pretty accurate considering they forecast a year in advance. After an August with no triple digit days, I know it will be a cold winter. That is just common sense.
The first almanac had a weather prediction of a snowy Boston — in July. It was written as a joke.
Only it came true.
Ever since, there has been weather predictions in the almanac for all to enjoy. Weather-folks with big degrees are often ridiculing the whole thing, suggesting that a calendar filled with random predictions is just as precise.
On the other hand, 1976 saw a cold and windy September through much of the US, and when Jimmy Carter walked to the White House, it was almost a scene from Dr Zhivago with all the ice and snow coating Washington.
Where I live in the upper Midwest, the evenings and night have been icy cold the past couple of days, with only mild warmth throughout the days. Does this mean a colder winter than last year, when it was still cozily warm throughout late August and early September?
Everything I know about weather bodes for a cold winter. From low sunspot activity, to the experience over the last couple years of cold and to the extremely cool summer. Even this morning, the temperature was 59 degrees. It might get that cold in September, but not at the beginning of the month.
I live in Jacksonville which is actually southern Georgia. We just get nice surf, little wind. Although lately every afternoon we have awesome electrical storms. Me being all religious and shit makes me stay clear of lightening.
Hmm. According to the US NOAA it looks like an El Nino winter is coming. That means a warmer, drier winter for us in Alberta.
Yup… Nothing like living in the middle of Red River Valley. Great.
#16: Which Red River? The one on the Dakotas border has had floods and other lousy weather in winter for several years. The one in New Mexico has had mild winters, lately.
Dude, didn’t these guys like, even watch “An Inconvenient Truth?”
With all the climate change models that have been it should be a simple thing to predict the upcoming year.
Why can’t they (climatologists) just take all the data that has been recorded for the last 20 years, plug it into their climate change models and tell us, in general, if the weather this winter will be mild or not.
And a simple way to test the models would be to take data for the last 19 years, plug it into the model, and see how well the computer can predict what last year’s winter was like.
17. North Dakota Red River. Last winter was very cold but the winter before that was fine.
They’re all global warming, er, uhm, global climate change deniers!
Al Gore says the planet is heating up, and he has a Noble Prize…
All Hail! Al Gore!!!!
(Please excuse me, I just wanted to see what it would be like to label and pigeon-hole someone who didn’t march lock-step with “Uncle Al”)
How many coconuts does Dixie find to retrieve in Colorado?
No wait! it’s going to be warm and dry!
No Snow! No Rain! Dust bowl conditions!
Or, it will be cold, rainy, and a new Ice Age will begin.
And that only will be the first week of November in Chicago!
We are in the middle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). It is similar to El Nino and La Nana, except it has about a 30 year cycle.
The last one was the 1978-79. The Northeast had some bitter winters with a few blizzards.
The framers are also expecting early killing frosts in early October.
[Duplicate comment deleted. Please don’t double post! – ed.]
#22. None. But in her day, she was the best damn coconut retriever in the Virgin Islands.
The Farmers almanac does have a host of things they look at and they do better than you might expect for long range forecasting.
Unless know know what they base their forecasts on its rather hard to say much more than that.
They aren’t the only ones predicting a cooler than recent norms winter.
Although why isn’t clear low sunspot activity is historically connected with cooler than the norm weather. The longer and lower sunspot activity gets the more frigid it gets.
During the Little is Age a lot of people starved/froze to death many of them in their own beds with all the cover they had on the bed. Hopefully nothing like that is in our near term future.
It doesn’t matter if this winter is colder, or if there has been no new temperature records for 11 years.
The experts tell us that it is no more than expected, and throw out a statistical explanation that it can be expected to happen as random noise for a period of 15 years.
So even if there is just a 10% probability of being in our current situation, they will say that global warming is still happening.
Here’s some links of alarmists defending the lack of warming.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/breaking-records/
And just in case warming fails to materialize after the 16 years they say is required, they have covered their bases by saying that a 30 year pause is possible,but then global warming will be worse than ever.
http://realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/#more-686
Anybody been hanging out around Austin and San Antonio this summer? I heard its been rather toasty there this summer.
“We feel the middle part of the country’s really going to be cold — very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow,” she said.
Hmmm? If you have very, very cold weather you get less snow because the amount of moisture the air holds is much less, and you need the moisture for snow.
Its Freezing up here in North East!!! We only really got a few days of summer really.