Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts plenty of cold and snow

Just when you thought you had gotten over last winter, be warned: The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts it will be super cold with a slew of snow for much of the country, even in places that don’t usually see too much of it, like the Pacific Northwest.

In its 2015-2016 winter forecast, the publication is calling for normal snowfall and below-normal temperatures in New England.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, billed as the oldest periodical in North America, is not to be confused with the rival Farmers’ Almanac, which also issues seasonal weather forecasts.

Meteorologists generally scoff at the annual predictions from these almanacs. The Pacific Northwest will reportedly be subjected to its snowiest weather from mid-December through the middle of January – or possibly even late February.

Rainfall is supposed to be above average for California in the first half of the winter, with the second half drying up. If so, better make sure your snow-blower is tuned up.

In the business of auguring weather patterns since 1792, then editor Robert B. Thomas cobbled together an anticipatory formula using bits and pieces of solar cycles, meteorology and climatology. “Media fascination with predictions from almanacs or groundhogs perpetuates this perception”.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac has been heralded as a reliable source for weather predictions, recipes, animal husbandry, historical tidbits, and agriculture articles since 1792.

Weather forecasting is “a rigorous and quantitative science steeped in physics, advanced math, fluid dynamics and thermodynamics”, University of Georgia atmospheric scientist J. Marshall Shepherd wrote on Forbes.com.

Wondering what the weather will be like the rest of the year?

“What we really do is predict the deviations from the normal or averages for an area for the season”, she said. “We don’t expect a whole lot of relief”.

Citing the effects of what could be the biggest El Niño in 50 years, NOAA is anticipating a significantly different landscape for most of the U.S than that described in the almanac.

“I really don’t see anything right now that tilt the odds one way or the other”, he said. Around much of the Great Lakes, NOAA predicts drier than usual weather. “The conditions that created that – warm surface temperatures along the West Coast all the way up to Alaska – favor a similar pattern”. “It’s about as oppressively humid as it can get in Maine”.