What is the Farmers’ Almanac and how does it predict the weather?
The Farmers’ Almanac has released its annual prediction for the coming winter season. What is this publication and how does it make its forecasts?
The Farmer’s Almanac has been predicting the weather in the United States for over two hundred years, and its extended weather forecast for the 2024-2025 winter season warns of conditions that it describes as a “wet winter whirlwind.”
Here’s more on what this publication is, and what it foresees for the winter season.
READ ALSO: Old Farmer’s Almanac predicts mild winter
What is the Farmers’ Almanac?
A continuous publication since 1818 out of Lewiston, Maine, the Farmers’ Almanac is an annual periodical that provides weather predictions both for the short and long term. It also offers gardening tips, advice on farming, astronomy, and natural household remedies.
It has had seven editors in its two hundred years of existence. David Young, a poet and astronomer, founded and ran the almanac for over three decades. In 1933, the periodical was taken over by Ray Geiger, whose company still publishes it today.
In 1997 the website farmersalmanac.com was created as an online edition of the publication, which also has profiles on Facebook (with over 1.3 million followers) and other social media platforms.
This year’s edition is already available for purchase on their website with a retail price of $8.99. It includes “strategies to help save you money, folklore, hints, and tons of entertaining and informative articles that help you live a healthier, happier, and more self-sustained lifestyle,” according to its site.
READ ALSO: Midwestern states see record-high temperatures
How does the Farmers’ Almanac predict the weather?
The publication uses a formula originally developed in 1818 by its founding editor. Factors it considers include sunspot activity, tidal action of the moon, and planet position.
The formula is used by their “weather prognosticator”, who is known by the alias Caleb Weatherbee. The editors of the almanac “keep both Caleb’s true identity and the formula a closely guarded brand secret.”
What weather has it predicted for the winter?
The almanac warns of weather that it describes as a “wet winter whirlwind”. It points out that during the entire season, the La Niña weather phenomenon will develop and stay in place. During La Niña, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific are cooler than usual by three to five degrees Fahrenheit.
You can read more details on the publication’s predictions for winter 2024-2025 in this report.
Are the predictions of the Farmer’s Almanac accurate?
The almanac’s website has a section called “Forecast Accuracy,” where the highlights of predictions are summarized. The site states that “though weather forecasting, and long-range forecasting, in particular, remains an inexact science, many long-time Almanac followers maintain that our forecasts are 80% to 85% accurate.”
However, other scientists doubt this level of accuracy. According to Scientific American, “solar activity and lunar motion are poor weather indicators”, and these factors figure largely in the formula used by the Farmers’ Almanac.
“Those things all have tiny, very small effects on regular weather variations,” explains the science magazine.