Despite its claims, you can’t always trust the Old Farmer’s Almanac

The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2011 hit the stands on Aug. 30. The 194-year-old publication predicted that our upcoming winter would be milder and wetter than normal. It’s also predicting a “kinder and gentler winter” for many areas that suffered through a rough winter last year.

In the Mid-Atlantic states, the 2009-’10 winter was the snowiest on record in places like Norfolk, Va., Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia. The new publication says it still may be cold in the East, but “nothing like last winter.” Last year, iguanas froze to death and fell out of the trees in that part of the country. The 2010 citrus crop was a disaster due to the snow and cold. Only Hawaii escaped, while the other 49 states saw measurable amounts of snow in 2009-’10.

The Almanac claims accuracy between 80 and 85 percent over the years and claims it correctly forecast the heavy snows in the Mid-Atlantic last winter based on its “secret mathematical formula” that uses the position of the planets, the tidal actions of the moon and sunspot activity.

However, two research meteorologists, John Walsh and David Allen from the University of Illinois at Urbana, conducted a study in the early 1980s that found the almanac differed little from the mere flip of a coin, approximately 51 percent accuracy for temperature and 52 percent for precipitation.

Walsh and Allen used 32 cities, two each from the 16 forecast regions of the country used by the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Spokane and Miles City, Mont., made the list.

The study showed that the National Weather Service averaged about a 60 percent accuracy rating in “seasonal” outlooks published in advance. The private long-range prognosticators, believe it or not, received the highest accuracy ratings at near 70 percent.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting a warmer-than-normal winter for the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, including Florida. NOAA is also predicting a colder and snowier winter than usual for the Inland Northwest. That puts it at odds with the Farmer’s Almanac, which calls for milder conditions.

I am siding with NOAA’s predictions, especially since we have a developing colder-than-normal sea-surface temperature, La Niña, in the equatorial regions. During the heavy snow years of 2007-’08 and 2008-’09, we had a strong La Niña. Last year, our region had below-normal snowfall thanks at least in part to El Niño.