Farmer’s Almanac Has Some Bad News About Winter 2013


The Farmer’s Almanac has long been a reference for the year’s weather predictions.

In the past, the Farmer’s Almanac has been used to plan for farming (natch), decide on crop viability and planning, and to generally be ready for the upcoming year’s weather. And according to the storied and well-respected tome, we’re looking at a bad winter.

While the Farmer’s Almanac has in ways become less relevant given our modern easy access to real-time weather and long-term forecasts, the book holds a pop culture bit of authority for its history of telling Americans what they can expect in longer weather patterns. The title is estimated to have 80 to 85 percent accuracy historically, which is not much higher than or even equal to chance.

That said, it’s not just the Farmer’s Almanac predicting a cold, bitter, and hassle-filled winter. Here in the Northeast, many have speculated summers like the one experienced in 2013 often belie an intense winter, and it seems that science aside, the general feeling is we’re in for a bad one. Sigh.

The main Farmer’s Almanac prediction turning heads nationwide is that the Super Bowl will be snowed out, but as far as the whole winter goes, the publication is emphatic about that, too.

Managing editor Sandi Duncan explained:

“We’re using a very strong four-letter word to describe this winter, which is C-O-L-D. It’s going to be very cold… It really looks like the Super Bowl may be the Storm Bowl.”

In case you didn’t get the gist overall, the Almanac is also saying it will be “piercing cold,” “bitterly cold” and “biting cold” for the winter that begins in 2013 and ends in 2014.

While the Farmer’s Almanac doesn’t always get it right, it probably won’t hurt to grab any of last season’s thermals on sale before the cold weather kicks in for good.

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