Old Farmer’s Almanac Winter Forecast

(UPDATE: I was confused…this is the FARMERS ALMANAC, not the OLD FARMERS ALMANAC)  I like to post this once a year…for entertainment value only…

The forecast itself is utterly worthless; several studies have shown that.  I did my own on 3 winter forecasts from the late 1990s to 2000.  Temperature forecast for our area was about 50% correct and precipitation was 33%.  You’d be better off guessing.  Of course every once in awhile one of the forecasts will be correct, and someone will remember that for the rest of their life, telling me “it nailed the winter of 2009!!!”.

Here’s an interesting look at its accuracy from Jan Null of Golden Gate Weather Services:  http://ggweather.com/farmers/2007/index.htm

I really like how they claim to have some centuries old secret forecasting method…don’t you think they’d be rich by now and doing something other than publishing a paper almanac if that was the case?

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen

ECMWF Monthly Maps

A day late, but here are the 4 weekly averaged 500mb height anomaly maps from the ECMWF ensembles:

 

Week1

Week2

Week3

Week4

The general theme of ridging beyond Labor Day continues, but this was the Sunday night run.  ECMWF runs since that time have backed off on the timing.  Take at look at the 12z ECMWF ensemble chart…in fact the coolest temps are just beyond Labor Day now:

There is some good news for Labor Day, the cold upper level trough appears to be arriving a bit later, so Saturday looks summery and Sunday could end up real warm/nice as well.  All is not lost yet!

Chief Meteorologist Mark Nelsen