The famous Farmers’ Almanac just released their Winter Weather Outlook for 2016 today.
The Farmers’ Almanac has been in continuous publication since 1818. Today, it’s circulation is still around 4 million copies per year.
How accurate is the Farmers’ Almanac? They claim it’s 80-85% accurate. Reality may be a touch different. They just released their latest winter outlook on August 24th, 2015.
“The Almanac Publishing Company claims readers of the Farmers’ Almanac have attributed an 80 to 85 percent accuracy rate to the publication’s annual forecasts. However independent studies that retrospectively compare the weather with the predictions have not shown them more accurate than chance.” – wikipedia
How far off was the 2015 Farmers’ Almanac in your area?
The 2015 Farmers’ Almanac was pretty dead on in the Northeast last year stating that the Northeast would be “Winter, White, and Wet.” But, the 2015 Farmers’ Almanac was way off in Ski Country USA saying that West Coast would have normal precipitation where the West Coast had it’s worst year on record. The 2015 Almanac was pretty off in the Rocky Mountains as well saying that they would be snowy and cold where they were pretty warm and saw below average precipitation overall.
THE FARMERS’ ALMANAC 2016 WINTER WEATHER FORECAST:
According to the Farmers’ Almanac, the winter of 2015–2016 is looking like a repeat of last winter, at least in terms of temperatures with unseasonably cold conditions over the Atlantic Seaboard, eastern portions of the Great Lakes, and the lower peninsula of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, most of the Tennessee and Mississippi Valley, as well as much of the Gulf Coast.
New Englanders will once again experience a very frigid (shivery) winter (Déjà vu).
Farther west, over the Rockies, the Colorado Plateau, Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest States, milder than normal temperatures are expected.
“It’s like Winter Déjà vu. Last year our bitterly cold, shivery forecasts came true in many states including the 23 eastern states that experienced one of their top-ten coldest Februarys on record. This year many of these same states may want to get a jump start now and stock up on lots of winter survival gear: sweaters, long johns, and plenty of firewood.” –
How Much Snow?!
Precipitation-wise, if you like snow, then you should head out to the northern and central Great Plains (most of the North Central States), the Great Lakes, New England (sorry Boston!), and parts of the Ohio Valley where snowier-than-normal conditions are forecast.
Over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States, the winter will be stormy with a good amount of snow. We are “red-flagging” the second week of January and the second week of February for possible heavy winter weather with a long, drawn out spell of stormy weather extending through much of the first half of March. So sharpen those skis and boards, because the eastern slopes look like the ideal places to carve some turns.
An active storm track will bring above-normal precipitation to the Southeast States, as well as the Mississippi Valley, Southern Great Plains, the Gulf Coast, and along the Atlantic Seaboard.
One thought on “2016 Winter Weather Outlook by the Farmers Almanac:”